A FRIENDLY CRITIC

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1939, Page 5

A FRIENDLY CRITIC

NEW ZEALAND’S FINANCIAL PROBLEMS LORD BALFOUR’S SURVEY. SYMPATHY & GENEROSITY URGED. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON. June 29. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, presiding at the annual meeting of the National Bank of Zealand Ltd. said Jhe hopes that exchange control would repair inroads on sterling balances had been disappointed, partly owing to substantial imports for secondary industries and partly owing to the fact that capital transfers were permitted to continue on an unexpected scale, which had added materially to the difficulties of those requiring sterling. The Government should immediately take the responsibility of laying down priorities in order to ensure that the volume of import licenses was kept within the limit of available sterling. He declared that New Zealand’s credit cannot be maintained if ordinary trading operations cannot be engaged in with confidence.

Referring to Mr Nash’s task Lord Balfour said:, “Though the moment is not propitious for fresh borrowing, I have no doubt that Mr Nash's request for a defence loan will be sympathetically considered. There is also an urgent necessity for fresh money to finance imports, if a serious dislocation of trade, amounting to commercial default, is to be avoided. I earnestly hope, whatever the wisdom or the folly of the Government’s policy, that those negotiating with him will remember that sympathy and generosity will do more ■than rescue the Government from its difficulties, which are largely of its own making. It wihjsave further losses and unemployment in British firms exporting to New Zealand and will provide the security needs of the British investor.”