SILVER CURRENCY SCHEME

Taranaki Daily News, 3 October 1932, Page 7

SILVER CURRENCY SCHEME

LOCAL COINAGE ISSUE.

MOVE FOR LEGISLATION.

Replacement of the present silver and copper coinage currency in the Dominion by a purely New Zealand coinage issue —a step estimated to yield an immediate profit of £l,ooo,ooo—is the main provision of the Silver and Copper Coinage Bill of Mr. C. A. Wilkinson (Independent, Egmont), read a first time in the House of Representatives on Friday. It is pointed out by the author of the measure that New Zealand is the only- purely self-governing portion of the Empire which has an outside silver money system, Australia, Canada, India and South Africa all having a local eoinage issue. The reason for the introduction of the Bill is that the New Zealand Treasury sorely needs the whole of the profits which should accrue if the measure reached the Statute Book. It is proposed that the British Government should treat New Zealand on exactly the same terms as South Africa was treated. There the British authorities agreed that the then existing silver issue should be called up, and the difference between the nominal value of the coinage and the bullion value should be credited to South Africa by the British Treasury.

The case in New Zealand, according to Mr. Wilkinson, is somewhat complicated owing to the influx of Australian silver, but he considers this position could be met by requisitioning the Commonwealth to redeem the Australian coinage in the same way. Mr. Wilkinson states that if the Bill becomes law, it is estimated that there would be an in/mediate profit to New Zealand of about £1,000,000, and that thereafter the whole of the annual profits would be received, in place of a portion only as at preset.