LOANS & FINANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1939, Page 6

LOANS & FINANCE

LABOUR PARTV POLICY. DECISIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON,, This Day. Remits dealing with the finance, policy and adrhihistration were considered by the annual conference of the New Zealand Labour Party last night, the report of the committee on these remits being presented by the Minister of Finance, Mr” Nash. Reporting on a remit urging the establishment of a debt extinction fund, thb committee said it had been advised that a fund of this sort was already in existence and its only recommendation on this point was that the Government should bear in mind the advisability of reducing the overseas debt on every suitable occasion. Referring to a suggestion for the cancellation of overseas debt by annual repayment of principal, the committee expressed the opinion that this suggestion would imply repudiation of the contract under which overseas loans were raised. This was contrary to the express policy of the Labour Party, and the suggestion could only be rejected. Another remit, rejected on the recommendation. of the committee, requested the Government to raise no further loans either externally or internally. The committee’s opinion was that external loans were necessary to ensure the importation of plant and raw materials required for the expansion of secondary industries. While the provision of credit to the Reserve Bank should be utilised to the maximum extent the committee recognised, that essential expansion and development could only be obtained from commodities which were conserved from prior production and that this would entail an internal loan in addition to the credit from the Reserve Bank. The committee also recommended that the Government be requested to maintain the principle of the graduated income tax on high income, but did hot recommend the conference to agree to a fixed maximum. A remit forwarded by the Northern Engineering Trades Union urged the restriction of all company profits to G per cent, all profits from 6 to 9 per cent to be placed in a reserve fund for the stabilisation of industry, and any profit above 9 per .cent to be disbursed among the workers. Referring to this proposal, the committee called attention to the principles of the Anti -Profiteering Acts and the graduated income tax and made the recommendation that the remit should not.be passed. . . The recommendations of the committee were adopted in all instances.