STATE LENDING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19845, 20 May 1927, Page 7

STATE LENDING

GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY ADDRESS BY CABINET MINISTER [Per Press Association.] WHANGAREI, May 19. Touching on the subject of State lending in his address to-night, the Hon. J. A- Young (Minister of Health) said farmers were experiencing real difficulty in securing financial aid from private sources of investment. Money was not only needed for the assistance of farmers and settlement generally, but for help in the housing of town folk. The State was looked to and must assist in meeting the situation. The Minister explained the operations of the State Advances Office in relation to advances to settlers and the new legislation of last year providing for long term rural He said that £140,000 had already been approved by the Board under the new scheme, but many were not yet ready to receive money. In any case the first issue of bonds would not go out for sale ’until £250,000 worth was received. The Minister urged that the public should buy the bonds, which would be issued at something over 5 per cent, probably 54 per cent. They would have a currency of from 30 to 36 years, and the interest rate to the farmer would probably be 6 per cent., but should not be more. He thought it would be worth while the State instituting a similar scheme on the same principle to meet the pressing need for homes for people. What the farmer urgently needed in regard to finance was long credit, for it 'was not rates of interest so much as the . short period of credit that worried, particularly with regard to the repayIment of mortgages. The difficulties must be met in the spirit of a will to .surmount them, and that could only be [done by approaching the sufferings of (the body politic with an examining eye and hand, so as to remove, as far as possible, the causes of the trouble and apply those remedies which time and experience had indicated as the best.