LETTERS TO EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 13

LETTERS TO EDITOR

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE Sir, —In your issue of August 29 you were good enough to publish some remarks by me under the above heading. 1 am constrained to again write briefly on this topic, because I have before me a printed appeal by the Public Trustee to the public, entitled, “The Public Trustee and. Advisory Trustees.” It sets out in specious terms the advantages derivable from the association with the Public Trustee of advisory trustees in the management of estates placed in his hands. Let me quote from this precious document, which is illustrated in the highest degree of undignified methods of the tout, besides being so constructed as to convey to readers impressions that would not accord with fact. Here are a few of the baits so disingenuously laid before a credulous public: “Although the Public Trust Office has a highly qualified staff, and over fifty years' experience to guide it. . , the Public Trustee . . . not only welcomes the suggestion of advisory trustees to co-operate with the Public Trust Office, but recommends their appointment.” “It is recognised that the system is a good one, and that advisory trustees may be and are often very helpful . . . when questions arise regarding the welfare of testators’ dependents. Where advisory trustees are appointed, the Publie Trustee co-operates with them to the fullest extent, ete. The advice of advisory' trustees cannot, of course, be followed blindly . . . but where a difference of opinion cannot be settled by conference, the matter can be referred to a Judge of the Supreme Court in Chambers for his decision, which is final.” Now, one of my objects in writing you on a previous occasion was to show that the benefits that would accrue from the appointment of advisory trustees on the lines recommended by the Royal Commission, that reported in 1913 have, by amending legislation or Orders-in-Coun-cil, been completely taken away, especially in the matter of reference to a judge, and the duties, or powers—if such they can be called —devolving on advisory trustees, are so purely nominal and perfunctory that such appointments are practically of no benefit to beneficiaries. Any suggestion or advice an advisory trustee may tender can be totally ignored by the Public Trustee. I need not encroach on your space by pointing out in detail how this has been brought about by the autocratic proclivities of the Public Trustee, but I challenge that official to disprove what I say. The Public Trustee (acknowledges,the value that attaches to the association with him, by testators, of advisory trustees, and there would be an undoubted value and a strong and highly desirable safeguard in advisory trusteeship as laid down by the commission, and embodied in the Act of 1913. But an advisory trustee moulded, tp meet the ideas of the Public Trustee is a cipher shorn of all power or initiative. With a reference to one other point, I will finish. The commission reporting in 1913 laid special stress on the tendency of the Public Trust Office to have recourse to advertising with a misleading tendency. On this point the report reads: —“Some of the forms of advertisement.are misleading, such as ‘capital and .interest- guaranteed by the State.’ There is no such guarantee outside the Common Fund.” Yet, in the advertising paper before me, the Public Trust continues to refer to the guarantee without any qualification or hint as to its limitation. Why should it be necessary for a great institution such as the Publie Trust Office, formed for a wise and. benignant purpose, to resort to such practices? On the back of the advertising sheet that has prompted these remarks, appear in a neat border the following“ Make the Public Trustee your executor, and he will prepare your will and keep it in safe custody free of charge. This is a direct encroachment on the function of a profession—on whose behalf, by the way, I certainly do not hold a brief—the members of which can defend themselves if so disposed. But it leads me to quote what is- described in a rider to the report of the Commission already alluded to as “Cheap law, synonymous perhaps with faulty law. The point here, however, is that the Public Trustee ean well afford to prepare wills free of charge out. of the profits made through the operations of the Common Fund at the expense of beneficiaries. Will our legislators, and the Press too. have attention drawn to practices that invade and menace private rights and privileges, and also the dangers that may, and will, arise by ambitious attempts to expand the movements of a State institution such as the Public Trust Office in directions never contemplated by those who brought the office into being,—l am, et j“ , p Tl g October 9. CHRISTIAN UNITY Sir,—Would you grant me space to suggest to the leaders of the Protestant churches of New Zealand the advisability of holding great itnited gatherings, in various centres convenient for people gathering in large numbers. Starting with the North Island I would suggest the following centres: Wellington, Palmerston North, Hawera (it is the most central for the whole of the Taranaki district), Hamilton, Auckland South Island: Christchurch, Timarii, Dunedin, Invercargill. There are great race gatherings at these places, and thousands flock to this popular sport. Why should not the churches or the Christians unite for one day in the year to show, and prove, that we arc agents of the same Master, members of one family, one God and Father of all? What a blessing it would be to forget for opce our divisions and to study our likenesses, and to fall in love with each other. The effect on the Christian Church would be great. On the world outside it would be mighty. To the rising generation unforgetable. This would help to raise the whole tone of national life. God must be enthroned in our national life, otherwise it will fall like a castle of cards. These gatherings could be conducted somewhat along the same lines as those of a great camp meeting. Special preachers or teachers out of the various churches could be .chosen, whose addresses would foster the spirit of union and help to bring about the fulfilment of Christ’s praver, “that they all may bo one,” These thoughts express the yearning of my heart for a deeper union of the Church with her Lord, that she may wield a mightir*- power over the hearts and Hvesofmen.-lam,^ oopEß _ Methodist Manse, Waipawa, October 29.