The Banking Committee.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 6695, 22 September 1896, Page 2

The Banking Committee.

(BY TEIEGRAPH.) Wellington, September 22. The Banking Committee resumed at 10.30. The confirmation of the minutes of the previous meeting devoured an hour of the Committee's time, during which several passages at arms took place between the Premier and Mr Hutchison, and the Minister for Lands and Mr Hutchison. The latter arose out of the Minister's expression of opinion that the time had arrived for the expulsion of Mi Hutchison from the Committee. The Hon. Mr Downie Stewart was examined by the Hon. Mr Seddon. Ho stated that the directors of the Colonial Bank desired to sell the Bank as a going concern, but the Bank of New Zealand representatives said that the terms of tho Act prevented purchase on theße terms. Clause 42 of the Banking Aot, 1895, had proved most disastrous to the Colonial Bank having cost them some L 50,000. He had nob been satisfied with the way in which the Bank of New Zealand had treated accounts in the "B" list. In connection with these accounts tho Bank of New Zealand was adopting, in many instances, a most suicidal and unsatisfactory policy. Witness did not agree with the amount of cover asked by tho Bank of New Zealand for Colonial Bank accounts. The demands of the Bank of New Zealand were most extravagant. If he had understood thac the accounts wero to be marked in the way they had been, he would never have consented to tho sale of the Colonial Bank. The result of the banking legislation had been projudicial to the Colonial Bank. Instead of the present process witness considered that the Colonial Bank should be wound up under its deed of settlement. Witness looked on Mr Henry Mackenzie as a firstclass banker.