SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22376, 13 April 1938, Page 6

SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS

*0 TU KOITOB or no PBBBa. * £ir, —"National Credit,” in his reply of April 7, is trying to make it appear that a statement written by me in my criticism of April 5 substantiates the opinion held by him, and worst of all. broadcast in publication by him, that “no investment in this country Is safe.” As I wrote previously, such a wild, inaccurate statement does New Zealand the greatest disservice possible. Let me say at the outset that the wise readers of your paper readily agree, as the statement made by me indicated, that owing to financial agents’ crashes abroad and to abscondings and suicides through defalcations of trust and investment funds by Dominion financial agents, the possessors of small savings fully realised that the Post Office Savings Bank, controlled by the people through their elected representatives, was one of the safest places in which to deposit their hard-earned savings. Many victims of such occurrences can support my contention that because of the now accepted belief in the real safety of the Post Office Savings Bank, coupled with a general prosperity everywhere apparent, the hard-earned savings have been placed in the Savings Bank, thus making a big increase in the deposits of that institution. Surely “National Credit" and “Country Solicitor” are alive to the fact that no concern of any financial magnitude ever uses the Post Office Savings Bank as an interest-earning medium. Surely they are aware that any single account in that institution can only reach the maximum deposit of £2OOO, and that the interest-earning capacity of all deposits is progressively reduced after the margin of £BOO deposit is reached. That investment in large undertakings In this country is still as "sound as the proverbial bell" can be proved on reference to the pictorial

section of the “Auckland Weekly News" of April 6, 1838, page 56, entiUed “Whakatane ana Its Paper Mill Pro* ject.” “£500,000 Pulp and Paper-mill Plant,” “The enterprise is one of toe largest industrial undertakings ofrecent years in New Zealand, .says a postscript. It is known that twothirds of the capital subscribed is Australian money, so that overseas vestors wisely deem investment is safe in New Zealand,” any remarks by “National Credit” to the contrary notwithstanding. He can also be_ assured that “Investment is safe if he turns to page 12 of “The Press,” of April 8, 1938, and inwardly digests the contents of the article printed therein, viz., “Search for Oil in New Zealand. If investment is unsafe, as your correspondents have suggested, can either of them inform me why toe National Party in Parliament wasted the valuable time of the country by opposing the recent legislation brought down for the exploitation by the State of the oil resources and iron deposits and, together with all _ the leading newspapers, strenuously insisted that these fields should be 'worked only by about registration of "new businesses” are too ludicrous for further comment. His , , “Things are not always what they seem,’ f recoils on himself. I shall supply him with one from BrackenPoor souls, with stunted vision. Oft measure slants by their own The poisoned*shafts of falsehood and Are oft Impelled “gainst them who mould the age. —Yours, etc., GOD’S OWN COUNTRY. April 11. 1938.