WAR ECONOMIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1942, Page 4

WAR ECONOMIES

BANK CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS INFLATION DANGERS STRESSED, NEED OF GENERAL SAVING. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Addressing the shareholders at the annual meeting today, Mr A. T. Donnelly, Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, referred at length to war economies. He said there was a widening inflationary gap between demand and supply and the largest spending power in our history was battering at the shrinking supply of goods. Mr Donnelly described inflation as the most cruel and least scientific way of taxing, because it pressed hardest on poorer members of the community and made the worker’s wages wither in his hands. The other choice was the hard way of economy and sacrifice. Admitting and cheerfully accepting the unpalatable fact that the tide of comfort and prosperity had gone for as long as the war might last we had means, if we had the will, to divert our money as we had diverted our men from peace to war. We could best pay by lending as much as possible to the State through savings bonds and war loans. There must be other loans, which must succeed as did the Liberty Loan. All should forget spending for their own ends and pleasures and set aside some part of their income. Some' complained that the sacrifice was not equal as between citizens, or classes, or trades, but there never could be equality of sacrifice in war. There was not even among fighting men, for one man might die and another live. Those in authority could only do their best to spread the burden as fairly as possible. We could only atone foi’ some of the unfairness and injustice when peace had come. “We stake in this contest,” said Mr Donnelly, “the present and future reward and price of capital, of labour, of industry and all human work and effort and every right and principle and every man and woman.” The chairman said the terms of Messrs Kelleher and Williams, the Government appointees, had expired, but for health reasons they had not been reappointed and their successors had not yet been named. The directors recommended a dividend of 33 per cent for the past six months, making 7 J per cent for the year.