LIVING ON LOANS IS DYNAMITE.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19663, 24 August 1935, Page 9

LIVING ON LOANS IS DYNAMITE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —A properly established country should produce as much as it consumes. There is no reason why it should not consume precisely the same goods as it produces —no objection at all to a reasonable exchange of goods with Its neighbours, but it should not live on loans.

The only circumstances under which there is a prima facie case for the acceptance of loans arc circumstances of sudden calamity, of defeat in war, of anarchy or disruption of an empire. Under such circumstances it is both better Christianity and, in the long run, better business, that the more fortunate nations should come Lo the aid of their unfortunate” neighbours and give them the goods they need lo preserve them from starvation or chaos.

If the goods are loaned the loans arc never paid. The pretence that (hey are going to be repaid causes politicians l'or yeans to waste their energies, that might be better spent, on sidy 'and exasperating financial bickerings.. In the end nothing—or next to nothing worth talking about — is paid, and all that is left is bad feelings between borrowers and tenders. With new countries, like New Zealand, once they could produce goods of (heir own, are not content to lie dependent upon London or New York. ’flic abnormal loan period is passing, or lias passed; the normal selfsupporting period is coming, or lias conic. Once immigration is checked the whole position and nature of loans to new countries is changed. The days of the British moneylender to the rr.v countries, whether in or outside of the British Empire, arc ended or numbered. What foreign investments individuals hold, it would be wise for them to realise on them before it is 100 late lo get a price, unless indeed it is too late. Another question arises: What would lie, Indeed what Is, the political effect of financial nationalism? Is it not war? —1 am, etc.,

FINANCIER Hamilton, August 22, ltb'ib.