State Bank

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 203, 11 August 1927, Page 9

State Bank

SIR JOSEPH WARD’S VIEW. AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTIONS FAVOURED. (Special to “Tribune.”) Parliament Buildings, Aug. 11. Observations on the establishment of a State bank were made in the House of Representatives by Sir Joseph Ward last night. Sir Joseph Ward said that at one time he believed a State Bank would be a good thing. A mistake was made in not taking over the Bank of N'ew Zealand at the time when it was in trouble. Had that been done they would have had a bona fide State Bank. Such a bank, he considered, should not have on it a directorate representative of the Government or of Parliament, but good men should be selected from time to time and given authority to conduct the bank’s business on a financial basis. He had' met people imbued with the idea that if a State Bank were established it would issue paper money upon the security of its own name_ in helping to finance people. No State Bank had ever done that and none could do it and live. Our country was entwined by legislation with tfie Bank of New Zealand and it was well to realise that thfv could not have a State Bank competing against them and expect them both to be successful, AGRICULTURAL BANKS FAVOURED. Sir Joseph Ward said he was quite satisfied that the country should establish agricultural banks provided it was done on proper lines. 'I he tme had arrived when this c iiii'tiy had to tackle the question of Hie valvations of land. It would pay the country to set up an itinerant boa:d and pay the members to do nothing else but find out the position of some of the mortgages. The sooner the country told the man who had borrowed from another that if he did so at a loss he would have to carry the burden himself, the better it would oe.