AUSTRALIA AND FINANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1921, Page 5

AUSTRALIA AND FINANCE.

MR. HUGHES MEETS CITY MEN. ALL DOUBTS REMOVED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.-Copyright. Received August 21, 5.5 p.m. London, August 20. The Financial Times states that Mr. W. M. Hughes’ invitation to bankers and financiers to meet him ‘‘to discuss the question of Australian finance” seemed to indicate that Mr. Hughes, knowing the strong opinions entertained in the city regarding particular aspects of the Australian financial policy, had resolved to tackle and remove all the unpleasant impressions. Any expectation of this kind was disappointing. No one could have guessed from the proceedings at the meeting at Australia House that British investors had complained; to take only one instance, that of companies, whose one desire was to sell land and who had been subjected to penal taxation as though obstinately withholding land from settlement. Mr. Hughes’ address was an unconscious revelation of the psychology of the Australian statesmen regarding finance. After cataloguing Australia’s flocks and herds, boundless wheat fields and vast mineral resources, and showing that for all the borrowings there are tangible assets, which are ever multiplying, he believes he has exhausted the question of Australian finance as it affects past and perhaps prospective lenders in Britain.—Aus.-Jf.Z. Cable Assn.