Inviting Bailiff from the House Next Door

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1068, 4 September 1930, Page 1

Inviting Bailiff from the House Next Door

FINANCIER’S VISIT COMMENT BY ECONOMIST Special to THE SUN WELLINGTON, Today. “To invite Sir Otto Niemeyer to New Zealand is to make a great mistake,” said a leading economist today. "It is like inviting the bailiff into your own house from the one next door. “There is nothing that Sir Otto can do for us that we could not do for ourselves. We know our problems of finance and increasing expenditure and the question of dealing with them is one, not of investigation, but of strength of Government. We need legislators with the courage to say ‘No’. “If ever we reach Australia’s present unhappy position there will be real need for Sir Otto; but the most that he can do for us is to sound a note of caution and advocate a policy of gradual reduction of borrowing abroad, both of which courses have been advocated by the Hon. Downie

Stewart for years past, and which were applied by him during his period as Minister of Finance. However, there will be one effect of Sir Otto’s visit and that will be a bad one. What will London think of our feeling that it is necessary to call in a financier to advise us on our national budget? The result is bound to react against the Dominion's credit. It is too late now to do any more than register a protest, hut it may be said that investors for some time past have been uneasy about the Antipodean field; without reason as far as New Zealand is concerned. This move will serve to confirm them in their fears. “We have not suffered from a succession of unbalanced Budgets as has Australia, nor have we raised short term loans to balance them, and then converted this floating debt into longterm debt, as Australian States have. We are not a highly taxed country even yet, and have great reserves. Why, then, give a wrong impression to the world?”