REACTIONS TO THE BILL IN AUSTRALIA TO NATIONALISE THE PRIVATE TRADING BANKS

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 October 1947, Page 5

REACTIONS TO THE BILL IN AUSTRALIA TO NATIONALISE THE PRIVATE TRADING BANKS

"ANGRY LEGISLATION" SAYS THE "FINANCIAL TIMES"

<N Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright.) Recu. 6.20 p.m. London, Oct. 16 The "Financial Times,” in a leader on the Bill introduced in the Australian Parliament yesterday by the Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) to nationalise the private trading banks in Australia, says:

“Mr. Chifley’s speech still fails to explain why the Bill is being introduced at all. His apologia followed orthodox Socialist lines, but wny are the powers of the 1945 Act not enough? And why is Mr. Chifley’s Government introducing a Bill for which it admittedly has no mandate without a referendum to the people? With no desire to intervene in any

Australian matter (though the Lon-don-incorporated banks are in fact included in the Bill’s purview). British observers still are left with the uncomfortable impression that this is not a Socialist measure for which a Socialist democracy has given its approval, but a Socialist measure introduced in the heat of a dispute. “Because the Government was not able to sustain its own interpretation of one of the clauses of the 1945 Act, it intends to supersede its own legislations. Party legislation may be right or wrong, but angry legislation surely can never be in a country’s best interest.”