BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 988, 11 June 1919, Page 8

BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Shall We Have a State Bank? Pin HE Bank of New Zealand has had a good year and the directors and management deserve credit for the business acumen which has produced .so good a result. But people may well ask whether the time lias not arrived when the State should take over the Bank and secure for itself the splendid profits which now go to the private institution. How wise was the action of the late Mr Seddon and his Govern -

ment in going to the rescue of the Bank everybody is now agreed. There were those who, at that time, strongly questioned the wisdom of the rescue, but how splendidly have the results justified the courageous statesmanlike action which saved the Bank. Some people are terribly frightened of even the name of a State Bank, but they forget that even to-day the Bank of New Zealand is very largely a State Bank. The State is now 'the" largest shareholder and hasi the right of resumption of the whole business. Will it or will it not, within the next two or three years exercise this right and directly and wholly control the Dominion's leading financial institution ? It is a subject upon which much is to be said both for and against, but it is one, we believe, which is destined to assume a leading position in the political programme of one of the political parties. Meanwhile it should be «i source of high satisfaction to everv iN ew Zealander whether a- shareholder in the bank or not that itsi affairs are in such a manifestly sound position as Js described by the annual report iust published. •'