STERLING FUNDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 March 1943, Page 4

STERLING FUNDS

RELATION TO NEW ORDER MR. HUGH MORRISON’S OBSERVATIONS. PART PLAYED BY PRIMARY PRODUCERS. “The new order, about which we are hearing so much today, is dependent on our sterling funds in London,” observed Mr. Hugh Morrison (Provincial President) at today’s meeting of the Wairarapa Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union. Mr. Morrison said that if the high standard of living, about which so much was being heard today, was to follow after the war, the Dominion would have to have £100,000,000 in sterling funds. Last year the Dominion’s primary production was sold for £80,000,000. It was a wonderful performance on the part of the farming community, although farmers as a body, were not too popular with the general public of New Zealand. Mr. Morrison emphasised that the proceeds of the sale of primary produce benefited all. In 1938 our sterling funds in London stood ’at £7,ooo,ooo—today they stood at £40,000,000. “You can create money in New Zealand, but it is no good out of the Dominion,” continued Mr Morrison. “The real money is that realised for the goods we send overseas. After the war we will want' to replace cars, machinery and a hundred and one things. Without sterling funds we cannot replace anything. The farming community has to produce goods at a decent ) price or the whole community is im- . poverished.” Mr. A. Ross: “Have you no faith in secondary industry?” Mr Morrison, in reply, said that with the exception of wool, hides, leather, etc. all the raw materials for manufacturing goods had to be imported.