PLENTY OF MONEY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 222, 13 January 1911, Page 3

PLENTY OF MONEY

STATE DEPARTMENT INCREASES ITS FACILITIES. LOCAL BODIES BUSY SPENDINC4. It has been decided that the State Advances Department shall now be allowed to make advances up to £3OOO on country properties, and an increase of the limit in the case of town properties is being considered. The department ha:always been willing to grant loans up to £SOO, but applicants for larger sums have had to wait until all the smaller customers had been supplied. Now there is practically no restriction save that which good business policy justifies. There is plenty of money, and with new legislation greatly improving the facilities for doing business with the State lending department, its operations will be considerably extended this year. The procedure to be followed by local bodies requiring lonns has been greatly simplified under the new arrangements. Once the sanction of the ratepayers to the loan has been obtained, tile State Advances Department does everything else necessary to secure the money, even to the giving of legal advice regarding the transaction. A revised pamphlet is now being issued giving up-to-date particulars of the new and simplified procedure. The law ensures that the borrowing authority will get the use of the money at the net cost to the State, plus a charge of ten shillings per cent, for administration. The favorable, terms obtained by the Prime Minister when raising the recent loan for the purpose of making these advances enables the department to lend at the rate of £4 17s Od per £IOO, this charge covering not only current interest, but the cost of administration and a sinking fund which will repay the whole loan in SO 1 /* years. No wonder that local bodies havebecomo increasingly enterprising, and that the department has already passed loans totalling over a million sterling. Loans are payable in instalments as the progress payments on the works necessitate, and interest is only charged on the amounts actually sent out of the State office at the time. Local bodies around Auckland have been the first to tike advantage of the improved system, their loans amounting to an impressive sum not far short of £2so,ooo.—Wellington Times.