GOVERNMENT BORROWING: AUSTRALIAN WARNING.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 79, 20 April 1937, Page 4

GOVERNMENT BORROWING: AUSTRALIAN WARNING.

Tha Thirty-TMrd Annual Conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Australia, which held its business sessions in Perth early in March, adopted a motion favouring the establishment of a further five.year plan for regulating Government expenditure and for confining all futurp borrowing to the Australian money market except in unusual ciroumstancea. * The motion was as f ollows •— That in the best interests of economy, it is considered necessary and advisable. that a further five-yeiar plan be established, dealing with the extent of (a) The control of Government expenditure on loan account; (b) Creating a London reserve pool; (c) Maintaining a reasonably low rate of interest in Australia for our bonds; (d) Confining all future national borrowing to the Australian mbney market, unless for some special reasons and some special purpose. The mover of the motion, Mr B. Eosenstamm (of the Perth Cham. ber), pointed out that the sfeage had been reached in Australian finance when equilabrium had been reached by the self-sacrifice of the Australian people. Australia was on the brink of another boom. The prices of wheat, wool and metals were showing an upward tendency, and Australian secondary production was increasing rapidly, Steps should now be taken to induee the Federal Government to adopt a three.year or five-year plan to regulate the anticipated expenditure, and thus avoid the pitfalls experienced by Australia prior to 1929.