THE PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

Evening Star, Issue 15174, 3 May 1913, Page 11

THE PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

A VIGORFOUS DEFENCE THEREOF. [By J. A. M‘Culi.ottgh.] I am much concerned with respect to the report of the Commissioners who were appointed by the Government to inquire into and report on the working of che Public Trust Office. This concern is not lessened by the fact that not one newspaper in the Dominion—so far as I am aware—has considered it of sufficient importance to refer to the report in their leading columns.' There are many who suspect that the intention of the Government and those who prompted them to appoint the Commission was that they might discover inefficiency or corruption. If so, they must be grievously disappointed, for the Commissioners declare “that the administ rations with respect to the methods adopted in making investments and the collection of the income and revenue therefrom is eminently efficient. The number of well-founded complaints received is exceedingly small in comparison with the number of estates 1 administered.” The Commissioners also find : " iuat the head office and its various agencies are fully and aiixiously alive to the various business considerations, combined with trustees’ duties, to be taken into account with respect to the realisation of estates.” The Gomraiseioners appear to be rather apologetic when they make the suggestion that the ValuerGeneral and two outsiders should be appointed to the Public Trust Board, and the Solicitor-General omitted. In the joint report the Commissioners agree that they regard the experience gained by long service in the Public Trust Office, conjoined with a capacity to take advantage of it, as affording as sound a basis for appointment as that of a business experience guinea outside. ’ This view is modified, aowever, by Mr Macintosh in respect to the legal work, for tie says, at the conclusion of his “i-ider” attached to the report : “In my opinion the public and the department itself would be belter served from olnside as regards much of the extraneous legal wont now undertaken bv practitioners comparatively inexperienced m outside or general business.” (Jne is seriously tempted ,to ask : Where would it Le possible lor a lawyer to gain greater experience in an outside legal firm than could be gained in the Public Trust Office? It appears to me that if this is not to be gamed In an outside firm in connection with land, financial, and commercial transactions, then Mr .Macintosh ought to have given some vfefy solid reasons for urging that the legal work of the office should be given to outside practitioners, 1 suggest, sir, tnat this is the first time on record that a Commission have censured public servants—or, indeed, any sort of servants—-for attempting to force the growth of their employers’ business. The Commissioners say : “It may bo taken for granted that the indubitable advantages derived from such an institution are by thus tune sufficiently' well known to the community, thus rendering it quite unnecessary to resort to questionable or undignified method of attracting businees by unduly encroaching on the prerogatives of others.” Aga m they say : “Wo cannot therefore too strongly condemn what has been clearly manifested in the course of our investigations: a tendency to unduly force the growth of business.” How ashamed the responsible officers of the Public Trust Office must feel in being convicted of unuuly forcing the growth of business! And even more heinous is their offence to force the growth by “unduly encroaching on the prerogatives of others.” Competition is quite evidently not the life of a profession, ihe above quotations prompt the question; Whose prerogatives are being unduly encroached upon? To arrive at the answer we must look back some time About June, 1912, .Mr K. D. Bell, K.C.-, then president of the Wellington Law Society waited upon the Public Trustee to induce him to cut down the legal work done in his office The result of this interview, 1 , ™ lnforraw1 ’ was communicated W f. h ° w W ECCI r S v ,es in the Dominion. Since t.ie Massev Government came into ofhee the Public Trustee’s report to Parliatwe" re /, 3rrc ; d the 1)3(1 feeling existing be. twosn the legal profession and his office. , cn a crO P .°f letters appeared from att ? cJun S tl)e office and its work, i ■.suiting m the Attorney-General (Mr .Terdman) appointing a Royal CommisS thd , u rtron g of the Public rrust Uffice there are some 7,000 wills that have been drawn up for nothing, the omy condition being that the Pubhc Truslee shall administer the estates. The fees fixed as charges for administering small estates are so low that it is quite impossible for a lawyer in private practice to compete with them. Taking these facts into consideration, it is at once apparent whose prerogatives are being encroached upon. I am not aware how many solicitors there are m practice, but I.do know a number of them who resort to peculiar methods indeed in order to secure a living certainly much more questionable methods of advertising their wares and their merits than these adopted by the Public Trust Office, and of which Mr Macintosh complains. I think the pro. fession will agree with me that their power and influence are not to be measured by their numbers. It is because I dread this mfluence that I urge mv fellowcitizens to watch very closely the result of the Commissioners’ report, after Mr Herdman has explained it to the Cabinet and the Hon. H. D. Bell has pointed out the iniquitous conduct of the Public Trustee in encroaching on his professional prerogatives.

May I also point out one significant tact: The Hon. Mr Herdman has assumed the portfolio of Minister in Charge of the Public Trust Office, despite the other fact that the Public Trust Act, 1908, provides that the Minister of Finance shall be in charge. I do not desire to elaborate this point; I merely point out that Mr Herdman ia in practice as a barrister and solicitor. He appointed Mr Hosking, K.C., president of the Otago Law Society, on the Commission, and Mr Macintosh, who incidentally happens to be a fellow-director of Mr Herdman on the ‘Dominion.’ I expect he has other qualifications, but I don’t know them. I know it was declared in some that he was only a makeweight. It is not so well known as it might be, and there may not bo so much in it as some people assume, but the fact may be worth recording that the Hon. Mr Herdman and the Hon. Mr Bell, K.C., together interviewed Mr Hoskieg, K.C., in Dunedin before that gentleman left that City to sit as Commissioner. Now, summing up as biiefly as possible, the report means, if given effect to, that the solicitor of _ the 'Public Trust Office cannot appear in court in connection with the Workers’ Compensation Act. Transfers of land purchased from the office or in any other way cannot be prepared. Poor people borrowing from the office must be charged fees—probably the minimum fixed by the Law Society. Wills cannot be prepared, as in the past, free. Those who wil] suffer most will be poor and indigent clients who are forced into litigation through accident to or the death of tho bread-winners. The whole thing appears to be an impudent attempt to exploit the community, especially that portion of them that are poor or ignorant for the benefit of a few bundled solicito e. The Massey Government, it is claimed, can be made the instrument to accomplish this great wrong. _ It remains for those who believe that it is possible for this attack to succeed to indicate in some unmistakable manner that, so far as they are concerned, it shall not do so without protest. The Public Trust Office is, in my opinion, one of the finest object-lessons in the Dominion as to how a public institution ought to he conducted. It has won its way into public confidence and esteem by the excellence of the work it has done, and has shed lustre on all those brilliant hut underpaid Civil serva-ds who h-”-e guided its destiny and made it the envy of every trust and loan company and stock-jobbing lawyer in the country. Because of this success, these people have decided that the office must be limited in

its operations. If the people and Parliament allow’ this limitation, and do not insist on an extension of its functions and usefulness, then we are indeed blind to our own interests, and deserve to lose all the benefits we are now deriving from the many other feme of State enterprises—coal mining, fire and life insurance, and other forms of State activities which have made New Zealand famous.