The Public Trust Office.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18723, 21 June 1926, Page 8

The Public Trust Office.

The present session of Parliament will differ from previous session if it ends without the snbmission of legislation designed to extend the already tooextensive powers of the Public Trust Office. We have not heard of any new proposals of the kind, bat then nobody ever heard in the past of the Office's encroachments until they suddenly appeared at the end of a session and were adopted by a tired House without the slightest attempt at scrutiny. In the latter part of 1924, and during 1925, we published many articles which, showed quite clearly what an undesirable structure of legislation has in course of time been built up for the benefit, not of the public interests the Office was designed to serve, but of the Office itself. The political situation during last session prevented the Legislature from paying attention to the methods of the Office and the extraordinary legislation passed in its behalf, but we are hopeful that during the current session some attempt will be made to enquire into these matters." Two or three times the Office, alarmed by the criticisms whieh appeared in our columns, issued what affected to be a reply to them, but in each of these replies the main body of the criticism was completely ignored. The case against the Office is, in the main, this,

as shortly summarised by us in one of our earlier articles: that it possesses powers which are repugnant to the principle of trust law and injuriously unfair to those concerned in trust business, that it engages in banking business outside the regulations which the State insists upon in the case of banking companies, and that it abstracts, and applies to its own aggrandisement, a rapaciously large share of the earnings of the estates and funds entrusted to its care. Its expenses are enormous when compared with the expenses of well-managed trust companies, and yet its profits are enormous, and this despite the fact that it performs many services gratuitously or at an economically low rate. It makes its profits mainly by confiscating a substantial part of the actual earnings of the estates and funds in its charge, and these profits are largely spent in the erection of lavishly expensive '••lildings and in the increasing of the staff. . In none of our criticisms or the criticisms contained in articles contributed to our columns by competent persons was there any suggestion that the Office should be abolished. • It was firmly maintained, however, and clearly demonstrated, that the Office has developed into something very different from what it was intended to be, and that the publio interest, on several grounds, requires that the Legislature which ignorantly and carelessly permitted this undesirable development should insist upon a thorough investigation of . the Office. We shall have occasion to return to the subject, but in the meantime it will be sufficient to suggest that somebody should ask in Parliament for a return showing, over a period of several years: (a) the total amount of interest actually earned by estates in the Common Fund and the total amount paid to the beneficiaries; (b) the total amount of interest actually earned by Government sinking funds and other public funds entrusted to the Office, and the total amount credited to those funds. We repeatedly asked for these figures, and although the Office issued, as we have said, lengthy statements in reply to us, it has steadfastly refused to give the above particulars.