SAVINGS BANK INTEREST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 6

SAVINGS BANK INTEREST.

"UNWARRANTED INTERFERENCE." (To the Editor.) I quite agree with Mr. H. E. Vail© in hi» condemnation of the Government's unwarranted interference with the affairs of th« Auckland Savings Bank. When is this sort of thing going to stop? It is nothing less than Socialistic legislation, which the longsuffering public are being forced to endure. Nothing is apparently sacred to this Government, and it is rapidly undermining public confidence in every financial undertaking. With regard to the enforcement of a reduction of interest in the Auckland Savings Bank to the trivial amount of 3J per cent, the Government is inflicting hardship on the very people whom it is its duty to help and encourage— the thrifty. While I fully appreciate the good work" done by the Board of Trustees of the Auckland Savings Bank, it seems to me amazing that the depositors have no representation on the board (elected by itself). The whole institution is financed by the depositors, yet they have no voice as to the ' disposal of the profits or the rate of interest paid to them out of 1 their own capital. This seems to me preposterous. To add insult to injury, the Minister of Finance now usurps the functions of the boa.rd and has apparently ignored its recommendations. The Government has apparently appointed itself manager of a financial institution of which it does not own one penny. When the charter was "Tanted to the Savings Bank surely this state of affairs was never contemplated. I trust that the other members of the board will show the same courage as Mr. Vaile and emphatically protest to the Government against its autocratic interference with the neoole's rights, if there are such things these days. DEPOSITOR.