A MEETING AFTER HIS OWN HEART.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3778, 13 March 1913, Page 5

A MEETING AFTER HIS OWN HEART.

MR MASSEY AND THE CHRISTCHURCH “SQUARE DEAL.” WOULD TRAVEL 1000 MILES FOR SUCH ANOTHER. THE LOANS QUESTION AGAIN. [PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM! CHRISTCHURCH, March 12. After the big meeting in the theatre last evening, Mr Massey was interviewed by a representative of the “Press..” , “I was immensely pleased with the meeting,” lie said. “It was a meeting after my own heart. I feel quite certain that it lias done an enormous amount of good. I think the Opposition played into my hands every time. They got me more than my'oivn speeches. I would willingly travel a thousand miles to have another meeting like that.” ■ A “Press” representative had another few minutes’ talk with Mr Massey prior to his departure for Ashburton this morning, and the Prime Minister again expressed his gratification with tile result of last night’s greeting. There was one point Mr Massey said that he desired to amplify, and that was the reference made by him in the course of his speech to the cost to the Dominion of loans recently floated on the London market. The cost of the Ward Government’s £5,000,000 loan worked out at £4 12s Sjd per cent.; that of the Mackenzie £4,500,000 worked out at £5 2s 9d per cent. ; while the cost of the £3,000,000 loan negotiated a month or so ago by Hon J. Allen worked out at £4 os 6d per cent. The latest loan was raised at four per cent, at 08. In other words, the £3,000,000 loan cost 17s 3d per cent, less than the £4,500,000 loan, and 7s 2-jd per cent, less than the £5,000,000 loan, or a saving of £SOOO, as compared with the cost of the Mackenzie Government four and a-half million loan. It should also he borne in mind that at the time the £3,000,000 loan was floated the English money market was seriously disturbed, and was in a condition much less favorable to colonial loan flotations than it was at the time when the five million and four and a-half million loans were offered. Despite the unfavorable condition of -die English money market when the £3,000,000 loan was floated, 20 per cent, of it was taken up by the public, as compared with 13 per cent of the 44 million loan, and seven per cent, of the five million loan.