The Sun FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1914. THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 108, 12 June 1914, Page 6

The Sun FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1914. THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Mr Harold Boauchamp 's annual review of the operations of the Bank of New. Zealand and his comments on the financial outlook are always interesting and informative. This year, Mr Beauthai;;}) 's remarks cover a wider field than usual, and they will no doubt be read ' VarefaHy-by the mercantile community. It has teen an eventful year for the bank, and the accounts show highly satisfactory results. After paying the usual dividend, there is £175,000 left to add to the and £51,068 to carry forward. In addition to earning a net profit of £.>58,490, the bank pays no less than £57.000 to the State and to various local authorities towards the cost of general and municipal administration. In other words the public gets a sum out of the bank's earnings that compares not unfavourably with the amount distributed to the proprietors in the shape of dividends. If this is added to the dividends paid on the State's shares, then it is clear that the public is already getting more out of the bank than the private shareholders. Mr Beauchampsummary of the loan transactions of the various Dominions during the past few months make it abundantly clear how well New Zealand has fared on the London money market as compared with other borrowers. It is too much to expect the success of the four and a-lialf million ; loan of February last to be repeated, because Of the abnormal demands being made on the London market by borrowers in different parts of the world, but there is nothing to indicate a recurrence of the stringency of two years ago, and this year's loan operations' of the Government should not be attended by stny serious diffi-

eulties. Some discussion is sure to arise over Mr Beauchamp's references to the growth of land values in comparison with the prices obtainable for produce, although most persons will agree with the emphasis he lays on the necessity for keeping up the standard of quality, 1 so that any decline in values will still leave New Zealand produce at the top of the list. It may be that dairy land values have in some instances increased fourfold as compared with an increase of one and a-tliird times-the value of the produee, but dear land makes a good farmer, and it is quite possible that the latter will get as much out of land at present prices as a.bad farmer did twenty years ago. On the whole the people of the Dominion have every reason to be satisfied with the outlook. There is only one fly in the ointment, and it is the unsatisfactory position of the manufacturing industries. All our eggs are in one basket, and although we may watch it with the pare of a Carnegie, it is liable to be upset by contingencies which we, in New Zealand, cannot control. The position would be much stronger if we had an industrial population large enough to be the farmer's principal customer, instead, of the producer being so completely dependent on the export business. Any assistance the bank can lend to industrial expansion along sound lines would be good policy for the Dominion as a whole.