LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20063, 21 March 1935, Page 7

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

AMENDMENTS TO MORTGAGE BILL By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, March 20. In the Legislative Council to-day the Mortgage Corporation of New Zealand Bill was reported back from the Statutes Revision Committee with amendments. The amendments provide that every holder of shares in the Corporation must make a statutory declaration that he or she is not the possessor of more than 5000 shares. Instead of two joint managing directors, the Committee suggests that there should be one managing director and an assistant managing director. The Bill as passed by the House provided that one of the shareholders’ directors appointed in the first place by the GovernorGeneral should retire in 1938, the second in 1939, and the third in 1940, and the Committee’s proposed amendment is that the retirement years should be 1937, 1938 and 1939 respectively. As the Legislative Council has no power to make amendments to the clauses of the Bill affecting the finances of the State, the Committee has recommended that the total directors’ fees shall not exceed £2500 instead of £3OOO. A further amendment suggested by the Committee is that the directors appointed by the board of directors shall be appointed for a term not exceeding five years, but shall be eligible for reappointment. It is proposed also that the associate directors shall receive no remuneration. The Bill as passed by the House laid down that moneys lent by the Corporation shall be secured by way of a first mortgage of land or of interest in any such land with or without any other security as the board of directors may think fit, and the Committee proposes that power to lend on any other security except land should be deleted from the legislation. In moving the second reading, the Hon. R. Masters said that the Bill represented the desire of the Government to stabilise the farmers* 1 mortgage system. The farmer was justly entitled to have the best conditions of the money market. Stabilised finance, based on correct land values, not inflated values, was more important than cheap money. It was desirable that there should be cheap money, but after all the value of money had a direct relationship to supply and demand. The cost of a guaranteed price of 1/3 per lb for butter would be £10,981,000 on last year’s exports. The Council adjourned at 9.10 p.m.