JOHN W. MACDONALD

NZ Truth, Issue 1050, 7 January 1926, Page 6

JOHN W. MACDONALD

A Big Man With a Big Brain

In a soft, wellmodulated voice and with a cheerful grin that belies his words, he will tell you m the privacy of his sanctum at the ;r Public Trustee has°been a more or less uneventful. That he has always been too busy burrowing into law books m the past suddenly to turn a corner and find himself stumbling- over a first-class adventure. , The avidity with which he masticated and digested the law of this and other lands after he had joined the Justice Department as a cadet m 1900 ended m his qualifying for the legal profession. The Public Trust Office made use of his talents as a clerk m the legal branch m 1906. John William Mac Donald proved that the quality of his brain was propprtionately as big as his bulk, and when he had finished pushing upward it was m 1920, and he then occupied the position he does to-day. As side lines to his job he attends to enemy property under the guise of Comptroller of Enemy Property; Controller of the New Zealand Clearing House (both legacies of the big scrap) r the Native Trust Office Board; exofflcio member of the Government Railways Superannuation Board; the Public Debt Commission, and the Government Life and State Advances Office Investment Boards. There are few men m New Zealand who have a greater knowledge of the law of workers' compensation for accidents than he has, and his written books on the subject, as well as on other legal matters, are regarded as authorities. .

In a great measure the organization that exists m the Public Trust Department at present is the result of this big man's steady and persistent efforts to popularize it and maintain it on safe and sound business lines. He has delved deeply also into history and political science. * His one shocking vice is studying the life of Napoleon; and others also addicted to this habit regard his word as the last to be said upon this subject. He finds his recreation m golf, snooker — and hangings (when there's one on). "■• .

MEET John William Macdonald! Perhaps you know him only as a name, strangely familiar — one that you have seen written or heard mentioned many times. He is the man m whom, next to the Prime Minister, the people of the Dominion place, probably, the greatest amount of Trust. And John William, big of frarao and lacking nothing m the quality of the grey matter that drives human \ mentality, fits eminently into the position of Public Trustee. His first protesting wail m this world was uttered m Christchurch m .1884," and the mischevious devilment of boyish days was perpetrated m and around Tima r u , both at school and at home.