PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

Evening Star, Issue 20610, 9 October 1930, Page 2

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

TALK Of ATTACK [From Our Pbelxambnxbrt Kbportbr.] WELLINGTON October 8. An attack on the Public Trust Office was forecasted in the House by the Leader of the Labour Party (Mr H. E. Holland) during the discussion of the Public Trustee’s annual report. Mr Holland said that the Public Trustee was to be congratulated on the growth of the department. When one noticed the low rates of the charges one could appreciate the service this office was to the country in spite of the fact that the office had been repeatedly attacked by such bodies as the 1928 Committee, it seemed that this year a new attack would bo launched by the legal profession. The memorandum that had been issued had endeavoured to create suspicion and distrust, without any foundation of fact. Mr M'Combs (Lyttelton): They want to manufacture cases, Mr Holland said that the attacks against the office always came from the same source, and this source had the backing of the Reform Party. Mr Jones (Mid-Canterbury) said that lleform had been practically responsible for the setting up of the Public Trust Office.

Mr Barnard (Napier); That was in the ’7o’s., wasn’t it? Mr Jones said that if there wore any faults in the office they should bo found out, and ho thought Mr Holland would have supported the persons who desired to find out these faults. Any organisation had perfect right to make inquiries into a State department. Mr H. G. R. Mason (Auckland Suburbs), said that one of the difficulties or the Public Trust Office was that it acted for private interests, and, with the privileges it enjoyed, might give these interests an advantage over others.

Mr Endean (Parnell) said that the legal profession had done great service to the dominion, and it had a perfect right to hold any State department up to the mirror of criticism.' If the Law Society had been an industrial union the Labour Party woula have said that, because the Public Trust Office had reduced its charges, it was “ scabbing.”