STATE ADVANCES DEPARTMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19437, 24 October 1925, Page 10

STATE ADVANCES DEPARTMENT

(To the Editor). Sir, —Speaking at Upokongaro on the 19th inst., the Reform candidate for Rangitikei, in quoting a list of unenlightening but somewhat impressive figures, stated that the capital account of the State Advances Department now stood at 27 millions. What the. candidate meant was that the aggregate amount loaned through the Department since its inception in 1894 was £27,000, : 000. With reference to these figures, the candidate put forward a £lO challenge to anyone to disprove the correctness of his figures. The present writer tried to get the candidate to apply his challenge to his figure of £27,000,000, but was unsuccessful, so I now reply with a similar £lO challenge to Mr Glenn or anyone else to disprove my figures, in the event of proof the £lO to be paid to the Wanganui Hospital. After having had to claim from a decidedly unimpartial chairman the right of an elector to put questions to a candidate, I asked the candidate to tell me the present total of the funds out on loan in the State Advances Department. This M.P. of . six years ’ standing (or sitting!), this candidate who was professing intimate knowledge of the Department, could not answer this simple question. On March 31, 1923 (the latest official figures possessed by the writer) the aggregate of loans through the Department was £21,576,915. At that date the total advances were £6,990,292. If one subtracts £21,576,915 from £27,000,000 one gets £5,423,085, which, if one docs not allow for repayments to the Department, could be taken as the increase in the advances during the past two and a-half years. But repayments, which since 1914 have not been in any year loss than half a million, are reloaned through the Department (or they should be). Allowing for repayments since March 31, 1923, at the low figure of £500,000 per annum we get the total for this period of £1,250,000. This million and a quarter scales down the two and a-half year increase in the total advances funds employed to £5,423.085, less £1,250,000, or £4,173,085. By adding this last-named amount to the previous total of advances prior to March 31, 1923, we find that the State Advances Department is now using £6,990,292, plus £4,173,085, or a total of £11,163,377. Now, Sir, this total is admittedly not the actual figure, but from it we know that the advances through the Department cannot be greatly in excess of 12 millions, and are in all probability less tha-n the 11 millions odd calculated above. Why do not the Reform candidates give us this total, for it is the only total that is important! Furthermore, don’t let ourselves imagine that this amount of eleven or twelve millions is all loaned to farmers. Of the £6,990,292 of advances to March 31, 1925, only £4,510,688 was loaned on rural land, while £2,479,604 was loaned on urban and suburban land, the ratio being very nearly 9 to 5. If the increase in funds for the last two and ahalf years is apportioned on the above ratio,"roughly £2,700,000 has been added to rural advances, while £1,500,000 has been added to urban and suburban loans. So wo find that roughly £7,200,000 is on loan to farmers and roughly four million is on loan to city dwellers. While on this subject I should like to ask both Mr Glenn and the Hon. A. D. McLeod how they disposed of the eight millions which the latter told his Wanganui audience on September 7 last, in the presence of the former, had been added to State Advances in the last two and a-half years. If eight millions have been added, plus repayments which should have been reloaned, making roughly £9,250,000 in the last two and a-half years, the present aggregate of loans advanced since the inception of the Department should be £21,576,915, plus £9,250,000, or £30,826,915, whereas Mr Glenn says it is £27,000,000. As Mr Glenn must have access to the actual figures, I challenge him to .quote them, laying particular emphasis upon the actual amount on loan, and how it is divided between

rural and urban, borrowers, and where the Hon. A. D. McLeod’s eight millions have got to. Thanking you in anticipation, —I am, etc., H. S. MONTGOMERIE. Wanganui, October 22, 1925.