INTEREST RATES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 404, 13 December 1932, Page 5

INTEREST RATES

CO-OPERATION OF ROTORUA COUNTY COUNCIL SOUGHT LOAN CONVERSION SUGGESTED A letter from the chairman of the Otago Electric Power Board seeking the council's co-operation in approaching the Government with a request that legislation be introduced providing for a compulsory conversion of local body loans with the ultimate object of reducing interest charges, was received at a meeting of the Rotorua County Council yesterday. The county clerk, Mr. A. Bellingham, explained that it was apparently the intention to ask the Government to pass legislation to provide for the raising of one conversion loan to cover the pooled loans of local bodies, and said that the provision of such legislation would not benefit the small bodies so much as those covering larger districts where considerably larger borrowing had been necessary. The provisions of the National Expenditure Adjustment Act had not afforded sufficient relief. The chairman eonsidered that the movement would reduee the charges for interest on loans to the ratepayers and that in view of the bad times the mortgagees should meet the position by a reduetion of at least one per cent. in interest rates. If interest on loans was not paid the. mortgagees were automatically forced into the same position by the non-re-ceipt of payments. It was pointed out by the clerk that the suggested legislation would not affect local bodies which had borrowed outside New Zealand as the mortgagees would pot be bound by legislation passed by the Dominion Government. At the conclusion of the diseussion the council apprqved the chairman's motion that "the move to obtain a reduetion in interest rates be supported."