HEAVY CALLS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1940, Page 2

HEAVY CALLS

ON NEW ZEALAND FUNDS OVERSEAS FINANCE MINISTER LISTS ITEMS. AN ASTONISHING TOTAL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, November 5. Charges totalling more than £25,000,000 on New Zealand’s sterling funds for the 21 months ended on September 30 this year, quite apart from those due to Government debt services and the country’s imports, were itemised by the Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, in addressing a luncheon meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Business Executives.

After outlining the reasons for the introduction of exchange control and import selection, the Minister gave details of some of the standing charges to be met before there could be determined the amount for which import licences could be granted. He said the country w.as considered to require also at least £12,000,000 a year to meet socalled “invisible” items. One startling thing was that the figure of £12,000,000 was nothing like the total. “I was astonished at the other amounts that this country had to meet because of the requests and ordinary investments of the people,” the Minister said. For the 21 months ended on September 30 permits granted for remittances from New Zealand for items other than imports and Government debt services and similar charges came to more than £25,000,000. Interest on local body debt was just under £2,000,000; repayment of local body debt accounted for some £3,600,000, the United Kingdom having asked for repayment of these debts as they became due during the war; interest and dividends to private persons took between £3,000.000 and £4,000,000; and repayments of debts due involved slightly less than £2,000,000. Legacies amounted to nearly £1,000,000; capital withdrawn by persons emigrating was £600,000; earnings of overseas firms fell just short of £2,500,000, and overseas expenses of New Zealand firms took about £1,300,000. Mr Nash said that royalties, commissions and insurances absorbed nearly another' £1,000,000; donations and similar remittances, including those of a charitable and religious na-l ture, were about £1,000.000; and films and other entertainments accounted for a sum that was not less than £500,000. Travellers’ remittances were £1,600,000. Another item that might run to

large figures was contributions to troops overseas. There had also been £lOO,OOO for relief of distress in London’s bombed areas, and a similar amount for the purchase of fighter planes for the Royal Air Force. “Every time we are generous it restricts .the amount of goods we can bring into the country,” Mr Nash said, amid laughter. He added that he was very happy to see people generous, but it was a fact that such gifts meant limitation of imports. “We have provided every penny required to meet New Zealand’s commitments,” the Minister added. He said the money made available by the banks in the middle of last year had already . been repaid, as had £2,000,000 in connection with short-term debts. Mr Nash said that in addition to the “invisible” drain on sterling, the Government also received some “invisible” items, and he thought that under this heading something like £5,000,000 ■ could be added to the value of exports. If the proceeds of the sale of exports and “invisible” receipts were added together and from their sum were deducted the items he had mentioned, plus Government debt services, the amount left would be that available for imports.