BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 42, 19 February 1931, Page 14

BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, This Day.; When it was announced at the Dunedin Stock Exchange yesterday that the directors of the Bank of New South Wales would in future pay dividends in Australian currency, the chairman (Mr. Harman Reeves) said that members would no doubt have noticed the statement of the resident inspector in Wellington of the Bank of New South Wales that the payment o£ dividends was a matter as between the shareholders and the bank. This was a case of New Zealand shareholders being penalised because of the ruling conditions in Australia. While the Australian shareholders would receive their dividends free of exchange, the New Zealand shareholders would have to pay exorbitant rates of exchange ou their dividend warrants. The case of New Zealand shareholders1 in the National Bank of Australasia was entirely different, said Mr. Reeves. That bank did not carry on banking business in New Zealand. The Bank of New South Wales, on the other hand, had branches all over the Dominion, and no doubt made a considerable proportion of its profits in this country. It was then a question whether New Zealand shareholders were not entitled to the same njst dividend as the shareholders in Australia. This was a matter which should come before the Legislature, which was remodelling the Companies Act. It might be made a condition of any company or bank trading in the Dominion with a local register of shareholders, that1 all dividends to shareholders be-made payable free of exchange, if they were made payable free of exchange at the head office of the company. If a company or bank made profits out of the i people of this Dominion and that company' had a register of shareholders in the Do-1 minion, surely shareholders registered there should share equally with shareholders in other countries in the profits of the company. It might be said that the pre-. sent were, abnormal times in Australia, and that sooner or later the exchange position would right itself, but that was no reason why New Zealand shareholders should suffer in the meantime through the political extravagance' and communism of Australian politicians.