NEW CURRENCY PROPOSAL.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20488, 5 March 1932, Page 14

NEW CURRENCY PROPOSAL.

MONEY FOR RELIEF WORK. UNEMPLOYMENT TAX AS OFFSET. * [THE PKESS Special Service.] DUNEDIN, March 4. A special scheme, by which he claims tho Government could overcome the difficulty in providing adequate unemployment relief, was outlined by Mr S. B. Macdonald to-day.

One could not overlook, said Mr Macdonald, that while New Zealand had bullion currency of £6,500,000, the paper currency pledged against it amounted to only £6,000,000. New Zealand's currency, therefore, was in a particularly sound state. Whereas the note issue of the Dominion did not reach the value of the bullion currency, it was considered sound in Australia, Great Britain, and in other countries to have a note issue at least four times as large as the bullion currency. He 'therefore thought that the Parliament of New Zealand should, by Act, create a jiote reserve based on the asset value of the country, guaranteed by the people, and issued only as an internal currency. Offset by Unemployment Tax. The purpose of this note issue would be to enable the Government to deal with unemployment. Married men cculd be given £4 a week and single men £2 a week, and if their work took them away from their homes, accommodation could be provided. He estimated that the amount required for one year would be £6,000,000, and the present unemployment tax could be used as a guarantee to redeem this special issue. At the present time the Government, was collecting, lie understood, £2,000,000 a year with the tax of 3d in £l. He thought that it would be necessary to find work for the unemployed for a further two years, and the amount required under his scheme would be & 12,000,000 by the pledge of the unemployment tax, winch could be doubled. The note issue could be redeemed in three or four years. Work to Pnt in Hand. Mr Macdonald concluded by stating that the unemployed were discouraged by the fact that they knew that the money with which they were being paid was being wasted, as the work which they were doing was unprofitable. He claimed that there were national works, such as irrigation in Central Otago, North Otago, and Canterbury, the building of railways and draining of swam)) lands in the North Island, which could be undertaken. If the unemployed , were placed on these national enterprises, and given an adequate wage under his scheme, they would be given heart to work for the benefit of the Dominion.