WHAT THE CITY OF LONDON KNOWS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21179, 28 October 1938, Page 11

WHAT THE CITY OF LONDON KNOWS

To the Editor of " The Timaru Herald ” Sir, —Your sub-leader of Friday dealing with what the London investor knows, suggests a contribution of what he not only knows; but at which he deliberately winks. He knows, vide Hansard, No. 9, page 202, how London funds have been used, and he knows full well that the Finance Minister stated the need for watchfulness to ensure the English bondholders' equity in our London funds. He knows, and none better, that watchfulness was most conspicuous by its absence for a goodly number of years—a fact disclosed in a speech by the Hon. Adam Hamilton on the Indemnity Bill. And he knows just how profitable loans to pay interest have been to him. He knows that then the present Government were not on the Treasury benches. If there is one solitary item more than another of which he is cognisant, it is that Public Works are being financed, and for him there are no “perks.” If there is one fact which this scribe knows the London investor knows, it is that 400,000 tons of Balkan wheat Instead of filling the Danube barges for Germany was shipped to England—while the Australian wheat growers’ product was a drug on the market, selling at 1/3 per bushel below production cost; while Canadian growers urged the supply of their wheat to Germany in its thousands of bushels on long term credit, conditionally. . . that the peace should not be broken. What of ourselves? This scribe stacked and assisted in stacking wheat last harvest and those who were associated with me know full well the havoc wrought by adverse weather conditions—havoc which all the City of London could not have prevented. The London investor knows that we did not go to Rumania or Bulgaria for our sljprtage, but to a source, which, if the Sydney Bulletin is an authority, is sadly wor-

rled over depleted funds, heavy interest and redemption payments, and who right now is being heavily bombarded by a demand for £43,000,000 of debt free money for defence. As the Bank of England controls sterling balances, Mr Lyons probably wishes he had a bigger slice of trade than he has—so does the London investor also, I have no doubt. But if the Londonite winks at these things one wonders whether he shut both eyes to the £8,000,000 railway loss in six years prior to the present Government taking control, or whether he was stone blind to the attempt to sell to the Wellington City Council the Wellington-Johnsonville line, lock, stock and barrel, for £150,000. Was he completely stunned when the outfit went begging at £7000? Recently I read some caustic comment on Victoria’s writing down of £30,000,000, but they are really a modest people—most modest, I judge. Your reference to savings bank withdrawals, unless intended to indicate lack of confidence, is pointless. The wonderful endorsement of the Government’s achievements is emphatically not the answer one gets from unconfident electors. Finally, it has been stated that the Government’s majority is discounted by the State beneficiaries’ vote. This scribe draws a veteran’s allowance and is prepared to carry self abnegation to the point of disfranchisement providing a war bond holder in particular, or any other living on national indebted-ness-otherwise taxation—does likewise. Saving, investment, national debt, and taxation, as I view the walls of the debt structure. My admiration for the clearer visioned Ruskin's saving and spending is unbounded. The certainty that Nemesis dogs the footsteps of any people who depart therefrom grows as I ponder R. G. Hawtrey’s logical support of Ruskin: “Credit originates in production and is extinguished in consumption.”—l am, etc., I T. POWELL. Albury, October 26.