State Bank of Issue.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4671, 19 June 1893, Page 3

State Bank of Issue.

TO THB EDITOE. Sib, — It may interest many of your readers who have followed the cheap money agitation since its first publication in 1884 if they are informed that a scheme was drafted in 1880 for the State issue of bank notes. When the Land Associations Bill of 1886 was drafted, proposals for a State Bank of Issne formed part of the manuscript, and these suggestions differed very slightly from those penned in 1880. After duly weighing the utterances of Sir Eobert Stout, Sir Julius Yogel, Mr Macandrew and Mr Bathgate, and after receiving the opinion of Mr Ivess on the Parliamentary chances of a Cheap Money Bill, it was thought better to stop at the establishment of responsible Associations, and not to overburden an already heavy venture with the State Bank of Issue proposals. A manuscript containing the full scheme was handed for perusal to Mr George Hart, of the Press, and he may possibly remember that provision was made for the establishment of a State Bank. But the portion forwarded to the Government Printer avoided any indefinite State responsibility. The conviction that the State,- Bhould exercise ' greater control over our currency and note issue, without crippling private enterprise, or lifting liability from the outside shareholders of our admittedly well managed Banks, has been strengthened by the experience of the last nine years, and by the disasters that have befallen our brethren in Australia. At the same time nothing appears more certain than that the entrance of the Government into the ordinary bill discounting and money lending arena — especially by the use of inconvertible notes — will shake our financial stability and unnecessarily induce an injurious competition with the banks, upon whose English, shareholders we can at present rely to make good any ordinary breakdown. I think that pound notesshould only be issued by the State.— l am, &c, J. H. NEWLYN.