FINANCIAL CONDITIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1921, Page 5

FINANCIAL CONDITIONS.

SIR JOSEPH WARD'S VIEWS. London, Jan 12. Though Sir Joseph Ward has avoided the public expression of his opinions on current affairs and maintained the privacy he sought when he arrived in England he has kept himself in touch with political and economic questions as they apply to this country and to the Empire. His privacy has not prevented him from coming into contact with financial authorities, nor has it precluded him from being conversant with political affairs as known and discussed by the inner circles at Westminster. Financial mattery naturally attract his attention, and in this connection he is convinced that one of the first things the British Government should do, in spite of the prejudice against further borrowing, is to’, negotiate one big loan to pay off its debt to America, and by so doing become once more master of the exchange. He maintains that the numerous war loans issued at varying rates of interest and now subject to abnormal fluctuations on the Stock Exchange should, by giving inducements for repurchase to the public, be reduced to one dead level of conditions and rate of interest. The deplorable state of commerce at the present time he attributes —apart from the influence of European exchange —to the effect of the Excess Profit Duty in this country, and he forecasts, not only the repeal of this much-discussed imposition but an alteration in the personnel of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.