Evening Post. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 19, 1906.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 95, 19 October 1906, Page 4

Evening Post. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 19, 1906.

NEW POWERS FOR THE POSTMASTER • \ The second clause of the Post Office Act Amendment Bill has received ,a warm welcome from that large and steadily growjng class of persons who invest their money in the Peat Office. Savings Bank, and who, as the Bill names a higher rate of intorest than what they have^ been receiving, have jumped to the conclusion that they are going to get more. As a mattei of fact, the rates of interest named by this clause are exactly those fixed by the Post Office Act of 1900, but by the Bill as by the Act it is only the maximum rates that are actually fixed, the determination within those limits being left to the discretion of the Colonial Treasurer^ But the largest sum on which the higher rate of 6 per cent, is payable is increased from £200 to £300, and the maximum sum for the low,er rate of 4 per cent, is made £600 instead of £500. The fact that the higher rate is payable on the first £300 even if the total deposit exceeds that amount is also made clear, though we believe this to have been the previous practice. Depositors secure a distinct advantage in thiß respect, but they are not going to secure an inso facto rise, as many have supposed, It is well knqwn that for a good many years of the Seddonian regime the Colonial Treasurer, in the exercise^ of his discretion, fixed the rate not only considerably below the legal maximum, but also below tho figure at which a fairly profitable business could have been done. A State which looks upon its functions in this matter as higher than those of a. mere loan company, which looks to the promotion of thrift no less than to the making of profit, may properly pay a rate , slightly, higher than the market rate to depositors in its savings banks; but to pay much above that rate would bo to risk the diverting of these institutions from their original functions into receptacles for large sums of money deposited at call by depositors not requiring an inducement to thrift, but only a temporary and profitable resting-place for capital awaiting permanent investment. If the rate were raised ti/ 6 per cent, to-morrow, th© increase in deposits would mean not that the working man had suddenly become more thrifty, but that 'the capitalist had found where with his monoy practically at call he could get as good interest as a bank would give him on a fixed deposit for a year.' The other clauses of the Bill which will most attTact public attention ara those which enable the PostmasterGeneral to givo this colony that protection from some of the worst incitements to gambling: which he failed to get the Postal Congress to adopt by a. universal prohibition Tho congress preferred to leave the matter to the initiative of each State within its own boundaries, and Sit Joseph Ward has not been slow to act upon the hint. The anomaly of tho present law which prohibits local industry in lotteries and sweepstakes, but permits the foreign promoters of such devices to have freo access to our people through tho rt, is farcical indeed, but clauses 9 and of the Premier's Bill will put an end to it. If the Postmaster-General has reasonablo grounds for believing that any person in New Zealand or elsewhero i is pngaged "(a) in receiving any money or valuable thing ns the consideration for any assurance or agreement, expressed or implied 1 , to poy or give any money or valuable thing on any event or contingency relating to **& hOlß*'ricoh OIB *' rico or other nwe A flj&fc^giflWiJU? o *** op SUKBU&ji a.*J

or (b) in promoting or carrying out any scheme connected with any such assure ance or agreement, or any lottery, scheme of chance, or unlawful game," then by clausa 9 .the Postmaster-GeneiM may forbid the registering forwarding, or delivery by the Post Office of any postal packet addressed to any such person, whether under his own or an assumed name, or to any address without a name. While this prohibition lasts, moneyorders will not_ b& issued in favour of the person affected, or be paid to4iim. While clause 9 deals with the receipt of communications through tho post by the promoters of lotteries, betting agents and the like, and the worst species of quacks is properly included in tho list, clause 10 gives a complementary power which is equally necessary. Any postal packet which the Postmaster-General or any Postmaster believes "to contain any_ printed or written matter of any kind or any enclosure of a kind which is ... in advertisement of any lottery or scheme of chanco," he may cause the packet to bo detained and opened, and its contonts destroyed if they prove to be as suspected. The putting of these illegal advertisements on the same footing with libellous or indecent matter will command general approval, and should enable tho Post Office to suppress the flood of circulars from Tattorsall's and tho German State lotteries which at present stream in through the post and carries back a stream of money for which there is much more profitable and reputable employment to be found within the colony. But tho protective powers conferred by this Bill make us the more regret that tho dropping of the Gaming and Lotteries Bill still leaves tho legal responsibility of tho local agents of foreign lotteries in the position of futility which tha,. courts have long since exposed.