POSSIBLE EFFECT IN NEW ZEALAND.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 146, 22 June 1931, Page 1

POSSIBLE EFFECT IN NEW ZEALAND.

WOULD SAVE DOMINION MILLION AND A HALF. Commenting upon President Hoover’s proposal this morning. Professor A. IT. Tocker pointed out - that its adoption would probably mean a million and a half pounds a year to New Zealand. “ New Zealand’s interest in the matter is confined to the receipt of reparations payments, which are almost negligible, on the one hand, and a funded war debt to Great Britain, on the other hand. This debt, in 1922, amounted to £27,500,000, and New Zealand is paying, in respect of it, £1,650,000 a year/’ said Professor Tocker. “If the proposals are adopted and New Zealand’s war debt to Great Britain is included, the relief given to the Dominion would be represented by this amount and would be both substantial and welcpme.” Significant Move. Dealing with the general effect, Professor Tocker said that the cabled message that America proposed a postponement for a year of all Governmental payments on account of war debts and reparations was likely to be widely welcomed. The proposition was the more striking and significant in that it emanated from the American Government, which was creditor-in-chief, in so far as those payments were concerned. England had repeatedly stated her readiness to cancel all debts due to her if the debts due by her could be similarly cancelled. Hence, the professor continued, there was little doubt regarding England’s willingness to accept the scheme. Excluding France and Belgium, most of the other European countries concerned were debtors and were also likely tp welcome the scheme. France and Belgium were the chief recipients of reparations payments from Germany. France, however, was now in so strong a financial position that she might be induced to make such arrangements regarding the reparations as would conform with the American suggestions. Advantages to Business. The proposal, if adopted, would do much to lessen buagetry and taxation difficulties in Europe. Such relief could not but react advantageously upon business, and it was possible that President Hoover’s main object in making the proposal was to stimulate a recovery from the present widespread depression. If that were so, the response of the American Stock Exchange to the proposal was very promising, for it was in American Stock Exchange quotations for industrial securities that many authorities expected to see the first real signs of a general recovery. GREAT BRITAIN AS A DEBT COLLECTOR. Speaking recently on the subject of I war debts, Sir Robert Horne described Great Britain as America’s debt collector. England, he said, had offered to cancel the two thousand millions of debt owed to her by her European allies if America would cancel the eight hundred million owed to her by England. When America had refused that offer, England had offered to let off her Continental creditors with a sum equal to the amount she had to pay -America. “ She became practically America’s debt collector,” Sir Robert said. “ She was to receive from European countries each year the amount she was to pay America. The rest she was prepared to write off in the interests of the recovery of pcst-war Europe. Mr Baldwin’s Statement. Speaking before the Debt Commission in 1923, Mr Stanley Baldwin made the following statement of the position : “ Let us examine how the debt came into being and see if that will help us as a solution. This debt is not a debt of dollars sent to Europe; the money was all expended here, most of it for cotton, wheat, food products and munitions of war. Every cent used for the purchase of these goods was spent in America; American labour received the wages: American capitalists the profits; and the United States Treasury the taxation imposed on these profits.”