RURAL CREDIT ACT.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1928, Page 6

RURAL CREDIT ACT.

While there may be considerable difference of opinion in regard to the efficacy and wisdom of. certain of the provisions of the Rural Intermediate Credits Act, it must be conceded that there is little to cavil at in the personnel of the board that has been set up to administer the Act. The measure provides for a board of seven members, of whom one,most be an experienced farmer, an ex-officio member being the Public Trustee, who is to be the principal executive officer of the new board with the title of Commissioner of Rural Credit. Of the board appointed two members are farmers, one a retired banker and one a commercial man. The Public Trustee, and the Superintendent 'of the .State Advances Office are also members, and their experience should be of much assistance in establishing the rural credits system. The third, Colonel Esson, is a former Treasury official of high rank, and is at present a financial advisor of the Government. Moreover, he was a member of the commission sent abroad to investigate rural finance in other countries for the express purpose of assisting in the inauguration of a scheme in Ne ,v Zealand, and it is an open secret that he was to a large extent responsible for the measure he is now to assist in administering. Colonel Esson has be?n appointed as chairman of the new board, and in all the circumstances it is difficult to see how a better appointment could have been made. It is to be hoped that the board will take an early opportunity of explaining the working of the new system, for at present there is considerable haziness in regard thereto. While the composition of the board would seem to indicate a •sympathetic administration of the Act, it must be remembered that it cannot be a sr.eeess unless it receives the whole-hearted support of the farming community and investing public. The measure has been framed with the desire to make rural finance easier, and enable improvements in holdings to be made and production increased thereby.