INTEREST CUT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 376, 18 March 1932, Page 8

INTEREST CUT.

“ Would Place Stigma on New Zealand.” Pe** Press Association. WELLINGTON, March IS. The Wellington Stock Exchange has sent a letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance expressing in the strongest its fears of the consequences should the Government reduce the return to internal lenders who have invested in Government loans. The letter says that on a previous occasion the Wellington Exchange said that such & solution of the present difficulties should only be applied as the very last resource, and out of dire necessity. It was, and still was, a necessity arising after every other source of revenue had been drained to the utmost drop. “In the past the credit of the Dominion has stood high in the money markets, and an appeal is made to maintain that high standard, no matter how we might be pressed and what other Dominions might do,” the letter continues. “It is submitted, with all due respect to the members of the commission, that the suggestion as affecting interest payments, if acted upon, will not make for equality of sacrifice. “ The effect of reduced interest would be so far-reaching as to embarrass the Dominion for many years, and place a stigma for all time on New Zealand. Members of the Stock Exchange are really alarmed at the consequences in the immediate and in the distant future if the sanctity of national contracts is sacrificed.”