MINTING OF SILVER COINS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1934, Page 9

MINTING OF SILVER COINS

“AUDITOR-GENERAL UP TREE”

INTERJECTION FROM MR. COATES.

MR. C. A. WILKINSON’S CRITICISM.

“GOVERNMENT MADE HASH OF IT.”

(By Wire—Parliamentary Reporter.)

Wellington, Last Night.

“The Auditor-General is up a tree. He doesn’t know what he is talking about,” was a statement by way of interjection made in the House of Representatives to-day by the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, Minister of Finance, during a speech by the Independent member for Egmont, Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, who took the Government to task for not making a better bargain when it decided New Zealand should have its own silver coins. “I cannot say how terribly sorry I am that the Government has made such a hash of this business,” said Mr. Wilkinson. “According to the statement of the Controller and Auditor-General (Colonel G. F. C. Campbell) the Government has thrown away at least £1,000,000.” Mr. Coates: The Auditor-General is up a tree. He doesn’t know what he is talking about. Mr. Wilkinson: I will be glad to confess I am wrong if that is so. In the meantime I have no other facts before me than his statement. The AuditorGeneral tells us how silver coins can be made for 4s for £1 worth. We have paid 20s. What we have done is this: We have collected Australian coins Which were never legal tender in New Zealand and we have melted them down into New Zealand money. How foolish! The Australian Governments gets the whole of the profit of the mintage and New Zealand gets nothing. If the Minister of Finance goes to Australia and tries to put a New Zealand half-crown into circulation he will be arrested and gaoled or fined, perhaps both. Mr. Coates: That will be a change.

- Mr. Wilkinson: I would not wish the right honourable gentleman such a fate as that. We can’t afford to lose him. • In the meantime, Mr. Wilkinson added, he Would like to see the correspondence which had taken place in regard to the minting of New Zealand coins. Mr. Coates: I will be glad to make it available to members.

Mr. Wilkinson: Thank you. I will be very interested to read it. The fact of the matter is that New Zealand has made a desperately bad bargain. I would also like to know why the Government turned down the offer to make the coin in New Zealand. I understand that such an arrangement would have produced a profit of nothing less than £750,000. Mr. Coates: That is entirely contrary to the information I have. ‘Mr. Wilkinson: I believe there is nothing at all in the making of silver coins. It is just as easy as making a jam-tin. Surely New Zealand is not so destitute of men and mechanics that it cannot make a simple thing like a coin. Mr. W. J. Polson ’ (Co., Stratford): Every State in America makes its own coins. '