GOOD BEGINNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 March 1940, Page 5

GOOD BEGINNING

FIRST BRITISH WAR LOAN OVERSUBSCRIBED STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT POLICY. STABILISATION OF INTEREST RATES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.33 a.m.) RUGBY, March 18. Sir John Simon (Chancellor of the Exchequer) announced in the House of Commons that the war loan had been over-subscribed and said it was a very satisfactory beginning to the series of loan operations the Government must contemplate in carrying on the war. He paid tribute to the support given by all classes, and in particular small investors. Sir J. Simon proceeded to make a statement cn the Government’s intentions as affecting the future issue of Government securities. “The policy of the Government,” he said, “is to aim at stability of interest rates and to secure that the yields offered on future loans, whatever their type, shall, after making due allowance for such factors as the period of the loan, be in agreement with the level of interest rates established by the terms of the recent two per cent conversion loan and the three per cent war loan just issued. In these circumstances, I welcome the action taken today by the committee of the London Stock Exchange in announcing a revised list of minimum prices for Government securities. The new minima bear a closer relation to existing prices than those fixed on the outbreak of war and may be taken as evidence of a desire on the part of the authorities concerned to co-operate in the policy of maintaining interest rates at their present level.”

After Mr Pethick Lawrence had expressed the satisfaction of the House, Sir J. Simon added that the usual practice would be followed of allotting small applications in. 'full. Larger applicants had been allotted about eighty per cent of the amount applied for.