A MINISTERIAL THREAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 50, 1 March 1937, Page 8

A MINISTERIAL THREAT

If bankers have aroused the ire of the Government, as would appear from Mr. Semple's attack at Cromwell Gorge, it is because they are doing their duty as bankers. A banker's first duty is to the people whose funds are placed in his care. If he neglects that duty the basis of confidence, which is the foundation of the banking system, is destroyed. But Mr. Semple represented the banker as doing something wholly different... "The man who wears the dungarees," he said, "is a damned sight more useful to the nation than the banker who sits at his desk and plays pitch and toss with the welfare of- society." The gambling method of "pitch and toss" would absolutely disqualify any man for a banking position of trust, and no charge of unfitness on this score has been made hitherto against NewyZealand bankers. The Minister of Finance himself has said that "the banks have played an extremely valuable part in developing New Zealand," and he has referred to the Bank of England philosophy as "sound, solid, and, shall we say, safe." There is no word here of "pitch and toss." Yet Mr. Semple indulges in wild talk: "If I had my way I would put the dungarees on the banker and give him a spell at that kind of work for a while. And that is what will happen to some of them if they don't look out.", We may dismiss this as meaning nothing, just a cheap attempt to win the cheers of the unthinking. Or we may regard it more seriously as reversion to the class-antagonism philosophy which permeates all extreme policies. But we. cannot entirely overlook the threat in the last sentence. If the bankers continue to discharge faithfully their duty to their clients (and possibly because of this to' resist the speculative trend of Labour financial policy) they will be put into dungarees. The suggestion of the concentration camp of Bolshevik and Nazi regimes is inescapable. But the threat against the bankers is also a threat against those whose interests they are safeguarding.