REPLY TO OPPOSITION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 239, 6 July 1944, Page 4

REPLY TO OPPOSITION

Question Of Gold Standard

“A wrong impression is apt to be created among tile public by the statement of the National Party's caucus decision concerning the international monetary fund.” said the Acting-Prime Minister, Mr. Sullivan, last evening. "It has been reported that, a caucus of the N ationai Party’s members came to ‘definite conclusions on important fundamentals.’ One of these expressed' ‘uncompromising hostility amt vehement opposition’ 'to any proposal to induce New Zealand to base its economy or currency on what was known ns the old gold standard.’ “If Unit,”'continued Mr. Sullivan, “has any meaning at all. it is that the National Party members believe that, the establishment of the international monetary fund as proposed would involve such a condition. This view is far from the truth.

As I have said on a previous occasion, and ns should be evident to anyone who had studied the proposals, the scheme for the establishment of the international monetary Jund now being debated in the United States does not involve a return to the gold standard in the old meaning of the term.

“May I quote Lord Keynes, one of the leading authorities in the world on the subject, who said. 'This is not a return to Hie gold standard. The plan has confirmed the dethronement of gold as a standard of value.’ Lord Keynes hailed the plan as ‘an epoch-making innovation far removed from the old orthodoxy.’ "It is to he noticed that Hie Leader of the National Party. Mr. Holland, has stated I bat his colleagues did not wish to express any final opinions on the probable outcome of Hie conference now lining .held in the I uited Slates of America." said Mr. Sullivan. "That is a prudent attitude, but it; is a pity, for the sake of securing an objective consideration of the plan by the public, that they had not decided to withhold any preliminary expression of opinion till they bad rid themselves of elementary inaccuracies."