Dear Sir

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 12, 31 March 1947, Page 4

Dear Sir

Letters to the Editor must be clearly written on one side of

the paper only and where a - nom-de-plume is used the name of the writer must be included I for reference purposes. The Editor reserves the right to abridge, amend or withhold any letter or letters.

BANK OF NEW ZEALAND NATIONALISATION

Sir, —Professor Simkin as an advocate of centralised control (Bretton Woods) does not break ice in his statement of the (dangers of Nationalisation of the Bank of New Zealand. (Herald 20/3/47). When he quotes Mr Langstone as a monetary reformer, there is the danger that Mr Langstone’s theories would produce the same finality under a dictatorship as the international banker has over Governments. Therefore the policy of the international banker is in the administration of its economic policy as dictated to the State. Now we have two forms of financial economy, the present conditions being ruled by sterling on the one hand and the gold dollar on the other. Therefore we must accept Party Government administration as an indication of the banks policy through the Government, or Government of the day. Professor Simkin has endeavoured to draw the herring across the trail of party politics, and offers the Swedish Riksbank as a substitute. He blows hot and cold, not giving any solution to the problems of the present day political economy. We must realise that we have had two semiState banks, and that the principle of the control of those banks (the Reserve Bank and the Bank of New Zealand) was demoralised when the New Zealand shareholders were bought out reducing them down to the level of those trading institutions controlled by foreign capital; and not by the body politic. By way of a palliative he suggests that the bank should be a semi-auto-nomous public corporation (such as the 8.8. C. or the Central Electricity Board). “A wonderful formula prescribed by the faculty of the London School of Economics, for a sick child suffering from chronic flatulance, caused by debt erosion.” Yours etc., U W. BRADSHAW.