NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 219, 10 June 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

A very successful year’s operations is disclose.! in tho profit nnd loss account of tho Bank of Now Zealand just issued. The net profits for the year, after making tho usual writing-down. of bank premises, provision for provident funds, etc., compares with the two previous years as follows: —

1919 388,022 1920 419,016 1921 777,255 In 1920 a special grant of .£lOO,OOO 'was made to the provident fund, but otherwise the comparison may be taken as approximately representing iho position at the end of each of the years mentionedl. The share capital of the. bank has, of course, been added to since tho last statement of accounts. In 1920 the balance-sheet showed a subscribed capital of £2,027,441, whereas this year the capital of the bank totals £3,904,988, of which the Government holds £1,125,000 preference shares and £529,988 guaranteed 4 per cc.nl. stock. The directors appear to be acting on conservative lines in the disposal of their profits this year, the amount carried, forward being £361,275, or considerably more than double the balance carried forward in 1919 and 1920. No doubt this is a wise policy undlr existing conditions. A significant feature of the balance-sheet is the shrinkage in deposits from £37,661,000 as recorded last year to £31,475,000 on the present occasion, while on the other aide advances and ctebts duo te the bank show an increase from £17,909,000 to £27,725,000. This, of course, was to be expected, and indicates that the bank is playing its full part in meeting the needs of its customers in these days of financial, stringency.

Britain is facing a (Moult problem indeed in making the cuts necessary to bring her swollen Government expenditure down to meet her now reduced income. A few months ago it was decidedto end the coal control, and tho result was a mining strike that remains still unsettled. Legislation is now before thje Imperial Parliament to end. the railway control and restore the lines to the companies. Finally has come a thunderbolt for the agricultural industry in the announcement that Government control of prices and wages is to end. During tho war heroic efforts were made to increase British home-grown food supplies. In 1916 the Government decided that the most effective step would: be to fix guaranteed minimum prices for wheat and oats for a period of six years. The wages of agricultural labourers —previously about tho lowest-paid workers in tho country-—were placed under Government regulation, and, so substantially raised that a new era began for the villages. The result was, in one year alone, 1917-18, the area of arable land in England and Wales inoreased by over a million acres. To-day's messages show that the guarantee has meant a heavy subsidy by the State to the farmer. It causedi a land boom afler the armistice and great estates all over the country were out up and sold as fast ns the auctioneers could handle them. Tho farmers, however, should not be in such a bad way, as Britain can no longer look for supplies of cheap grain from abroad. High costs in all countries and) the necessities of the half-starved populations of Europe should keep wheat at a world price that will make tho cultivation of most of Britain’s newly brokic-n-up land still profitable, guarantee or no guarantee.

A new move in local government is the proposal of the Wairarapa counties to combine in securing tho services of a permanent engineer to serve the whole district. It is urged by tho promoters that, such an arrangement will make it possible to carry out a common policy end to effect considerable economies. Tho idea is a sound one. Although a great deal can bo said against main road control and construction by the Government, still sounder objections can be advanced against the present stalo of affairs by which neighbouring counties work each, as they please and independently of the others. Wairarapa by a voluntary movement is attempting to is, form tho present system. At the same time the Minister of Public Works has •in preparation the long-promieod Main

Roads Bill. That measure presumably will deal with tho whole matter from a national point of view, ami the Wairarapa. counjies may find after they have entered into their voluntary scheme that quite a different plan will bo imposed on them by legislation. They are wise to proceed and disregard this possibility. Main roads legislation has been deferred so often that if other plans are held in abeyance in tho meantime we shall have tho roads go freni bad to worse. Hutt County, in default of revenue from other sources, is deciding to experiment with a toll-gate, and tho Wairarapa counties will be well advised to solvo their problems in cooperation. If the promised Bill inaugurates a new roads era it will be all to the gcod. Meanwhile self-help is the only way to effect improvement.

Enormous sums of money are being swallowed up ’ n the British system of doles to tho unemployed. Only small pittances are paid, but the whole basis of the arrangement is unsound in that the unemployed persons who receive the money are asked to do no work. Under tho Unemployment Insurance Act the beneficiaries may contend fairly enough that as they have contributed into tho heavily subsidised fund created they ore entitled when out of work to payment without more ado. This does not apply to the straight-out unemployment doles which have been paid out since tho war, irrespective of tho insurance scheme. In any case, paying people io be idle is a vicious principle. Every city and district ought to be able to find all sorts of odd work that could bo undertaken to improve tho place, and it would be to tho advantage of everybody if out-of-work people were told off for so many hours’ labour and given their allowance at the end of it. Britain adopted tho other method presumably because it was the easiest way out. It was simpler for officialdom to pass the money straight across tho counter and lie done with it, rather than to seek out work that might be done in return. With large bodies of unemployed such a method leaves them free to sit nnd grouse all day and the result must be to make the general discontent and demoralisation several times worse than there is need for.