NATIONAL DEBT

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20501, 18 May 1938, Page 6

NATIONAL DEBT

Recently the Prime Minister, addressing a meeting in Wellington, said that the accounts for 1937-38 would disclose a reduction in the National Debt. Mr Nash gave some interesting figures when he spoke at Lower Hutt on Monday, but the position is by no means clear. The Minister of Finance set out to show that the debt had been reduced by £4,382,000, hut he added that the reduction was not all gain as the transactions had involved a corresponding reduction of assets. The effective reduction in all obligations, he said, was from £294,583,000 at March 31, 1937, to £290,201,000 at March 31 of this year. In his second Budget Mr Nash showed the gross debt as at March 31, 1937, as £287,070,200, and that is the figure quoted in the Year Book as gross indebtedness. How is it that the total is given by the Minister as some £6,913,000 above the official reports? It is due obviously to the inclusion of Rural Advances bonds and the hypothecation of soldier settlement mortgages.

When the Hon. W. Downie Stewart introduced that intermediate credit legislation he stressed the fact that the bond issues would not be increases in the National Debt, and would not carry the State guarantee. The difference between the total indebtedness given hv the Minister on Monday night and the total given in the official papers is the same as the combined totals of the deed of hypothecation on soldier settlement mortgages and the rural bonds. Were these two items ever included in the National Debt at any time? If they were not then the adjustments now reported should not be claimed as reductions. The real lest will come when the Budget is presented. There each year the National Debt is set out in the plainest foim. On March 31, 1937, it blood at £287,670,000, end any reduction must be a reduction on that figure. The details given by Mr Nash on Monday did not disclose any such movement, for he mentioned the debt as at March 31, 1938, as £290,201,000.