RESERVE BANK.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20359, 17 July 1934, Page 9

RESERVE BANK.

Deficiencies and Anomalies Require Attention.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. (“Star '’ Parliamentarv Reporter ) WELLINGTON, July 17. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, containing 52 sections, is comparatively sketchy compared with the legislation under which the trading banks operate. It is, therefore, not surprising that the governor of the bank, Mr Leslie Lefeaux, has called attention to j some deficiencies and anomalies requiring legislative sttention, although the! [Minister of Finance, Mr Coates, gives a positive assurance that the bank will I commence business on the due date, August 1. None of the detected anomalies interfere materially with the banks* plans, but shareholders may be inconvenienced until an amendment is passed enabling Reserve Bank shares to be transferred, this apparently being impossible at present. The annual meeting of the bank has to b held on July 31, but there is no intention to hold one this year. The j position regarding shareholders and directors has to be regularised as it was impracticable for recent appointees to have held their shares for six months according to the qualifications stipulated in the Act. These are technical points, but there is an important practical question relating to Government business which has been decided The Reserve Bank, according to statute, will transact the business of the Government but it will have only one office in New Zeeland. Therefore it will be impossible that all Government payments could be made through its medium. The position after August 1 will be that while the Reserve Bank will have general charge of Government accounts and balances and also of the administration of the exchange account, the daily business required between the Government and individuals will continue to be done through the agency of the Bank of New Zealand. Thus, so far as the general public is concerned, August 1 will bring no obvious change in the relation of Government business, except for the appearance of Reserve Bank notes and the gradual disappearance of trading bank note issues. The Reserve Bank preliminaries have been conducted with the greatest secrecy, but it is expected that the new institution will strip itself of some of its acquired secrecy by making a full statement on the lines of its working policy at an early date.

IRON AND STEEL. Britain May Lose Market in Dominions. The prospect of the Australian market being closed entirely, and the South African market partially, to British iron and steel exports of the heavier type within a few years was envisaged by Mr W. R. Lysaght in his presidential address to the annual meeting-of the Iron and Steel Institute in the hall of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Westminster, yesterday. Mr Lysaght explained that he had recently returned from a five or six months’ tour of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Steel works which he found at Broken Hill, Australia, were extraordinarily efficient, and among the finest he had ever seen. Ore was delivered at the furnace at Ss a ton, and pig iron made under £2 a ton, with an output of about 8000 tons a week. Plates, rails, wire rods, sheet bars, girders, beams, and all sorts of constructional merchant iron were made there.

A new works, owned by the Australian Iron and Steel Company, was springing up. It had made pipes and pig iron, had begun to make rails and sections, and was putting down sheet mills. He was afraid, therefore, that in two or three years not an ounce of heavy steel would be sent to Australia, and Great Britain would probably lose that market. In addition, Australian makers, aided by the present advantage of the rate of exchange, were sending certain iron and steel products to New Zealand. In a reference to the new works at Pretoria, Mr Lysaght said that £4,000,000 had already been spent upon them, and he understood that another £1,000,000 was to be spent. The works, he was told, were producing pig iron at not much over £2 a ton. Adjacent to them mills for rolling wire rods and rails were to be erected to supply not only the Transvaal, but the whole of the South African Railways. In addition, Messrs Stewart and Lloyds were putting up works there, and it was thought that in a very short time South Africa would be making the whole of the heavy material needed for the Transvaal. It would take some time longer to cover the market in the centre of South Africa or near the ports, but he was afraid that British iron and steel exporters would have to wipe Australia entirely, and South Africa partially, from their books within a few years.

DAIRY PRODUCE.

New Zealand Championship Awards. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND. July 16. The New Zealand butter championship, decided in connection with the Auckland winter exhibition, has been won bv the Northern Wairoa Co-opera-tive Dairy Company, Kirikopuni, and the Dominion cheese championship bv the Pembroke Dairv Company, Stratford. The Raglan Co-operative Dairy Company has secured the Auckland provincial championship for butter, while the provincial cheese championship has been gained bv the Hauraki Plains Co-operative Dairy Company. Turua. The points prize for butter classes was won by the Ngatea branch of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, but grading points in this competition are not available. Results in the points competition for cheese were: Elmdale Dairy Company. 376.5 points, 1; Alton Dairy Company, 376.2 points, 2.

X. H. M’CrostJe and Co., auctioneers and estate agents. 217, Manchester Street, report having sold, on account of the trustees in the estate of the late F. Williams (deceased) the line building section of 28 perches situate Frankleigh Street, Spreydon, to Mr Phipps.