Lecturer Studied Capital Exports To N.Z.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 19

Lecturer Studied Capital Exports To N.Z.

The export of British capital to New Zealand in the nineteenth century was the chief study of Mr G. M. Miller, senior lecturer in economics at the University of Canterbury, during a year’s refresher leave spent at the London School of Economics. Mr Miller said that he had done continuing research on this in New Zealand, and in England examined documents of the Public Records Office, the London Stock Exchange, and similar institutions.

This was primarily a historical study, but the whole question of British capital exports became a very live issue last year when the British Budget changed the whole context in which these could occur, Mr Miller said. “There has been and is continuing debate on the advantages and disadvantages to Britain of capital exports,” Mr Miller said. It was a commonplace to say that New Zealand earlier relied heavily on capital from British trading banks, well-known mercantile firms, and lesserknown trust and loan companies, which were his particular interest.

He was surprised to discover that one of these, the Trust and Agency Company of Australasia, was still functioning substantially, though

now mainly in Britain and South America. It was a misfortune to find that flies of liquidated companies in the Public Records Office had been culled 10 or 20 years ago to save space, leaving only one file in every five. “Had we known I’m sure we could have arranged transfers to the National Archives of New Zealand,” said Mr Miller.

Visit To Kent

Mr Miller paid a fraternal call on the new University of Canterbury at Kent where a Christchurch graduate, Mr John Dowey, has been appointed a lecturer in economic history and will include New Zealand in this course for the first time in England. Returning through the United States Mr Miller visited several universities and was impressed with the “strongly quantitative statistical approach” now common in economic history teaching and research.

After some disappointment with the promotion of New Zealand products in Britain he was pleased, at San Francisco, to see “New Zealand processed cream and Skellerup milking-machine equipment being unloaded at the docks and rushed by truck to their destinations.”