MACARTHY TRUST

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 259, 2 August 1928, Page 10

MACARTHY TRUST

PUBLIC TRUSTEE’S POSITION In the Legislative Council yesterday afternoon, the following questions were asked by the Right Hon. Sir Robert Stout: (1) If the attention of the Government has been drawn to an advertisement issued apparently by the Public Trustee, headed, “A Guiding Light,” in which it is stated that around the labels on all Macarthy ales and stout appears the phrase: “Brewed and bottled in’’Wellington for the Macarthy Trust by the Public Trustee”; and (2) whether the Government consider it proper for the Public Trustee to become a brewer and a vendor of intoxicating liquors? Sir Robert Stout said he had read the advertisement with very great surprise. The Public Trustee Office was not established for the purpose of acting as brewer or vendor of alcoholic liquor any more than for acting as a merchant or hotelkeeper. The Leader of the Council (Right Hon. Sir Francis Bell) read the following reply:— “(1) The brewery business in the Macarthy Trust is a private asset established and developed by the capital of a private individual, who appointed the Public Trustee his executor and trustee. To make the operations of the brewery as profitable as possible it is as necessary for the Public Trustee to advertise the products as .it would be for any other trustee to do. (2) Under the exist g law of New Zealand the liquor trade may be carried on, and therefore interests arising out of that trade must be protected by a trustee like any other asset in a trust office, irrespective of any personal opinions or prejudices which he may have upon licensing questions. As the public Trustee is executing his trust in accordance with the directions contained in the testator’s will, the Government cannot properly intervene in any manner.” Sir Robert Stout later gave notice to move next Wednesday: “That in the opinion of this Council it is contra bonos mores for a high officer of State as the Public Trustee is to carry on the business of a manufacturer, vendor, and an encourager of the use of alcoholic liquors—-and if any trust he has accepted calls upon him so to act, he should take the earliest opportunity to discharge himself from the performances of such a trust.” The position of the Public Trustee in the matter was defined in similar tennis by the Prime Minister (Right Hou. J. G. Coates) in the House of Representatives when reviving to a ciuestion by Mr. J G. Eliott (Orona). Mr. Coates explained: “As for the association of the Public Trustee’s name with the brewery products, under the Licensing Act it is necessary for the name of the brewer and bottler to appear on any labels used.