NEW PLYMOUTH SAVINGS BANK.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 April 1935, Page 4

NEW PLYMOUTH SAVINGS BANK.

The public of Taranaki has become so accustomed to 'the story of progress in connection with the New Plymouth Savings Bank that the report of the trustees for the-past financial year would cause no surprise. It should, however, have evoked great satisfaction that a local organisation has come through the years of depression not only without harm but having gone from strength to strength during that trying period. A financial institution that depends upon the encouragement of thrift and the savings of the community could have been forgiven if its progress had been delayed and its activities curtailed when wages were lower and employment hard to obtain. Neither of these results has followed at the New Plymouth Savings Bank, and their absence proves that the bank has been administered with prudence and economy. The faith in the farmlands of Taranaki as a field for investment indicated by the mortgages held by the bank is very heartening to those who feared that “broad acres” as an investment were no longer regarded as first-class security. The bank is a Taranaki institution, and it is satisfactory to see that so many of its investments arejmade within the province. To have gained 900 new depositors during the past year is proof that the institution is receiving .the confidence of the public in an ever-increasing manner, and, perhaps, that the spirit of thrift is more manifest to-day than it was a few years ago. The banks distribution of its profits has been this year in accordance with the broad view it has taken of late in regard to this responsibility. The social services to which it ( is according support are all community services in the best sense of the term, and it is pleasing to note that the extension of the country school scholarships at the New Plymouth Boys’ High School has been also possible. The chairman of the bank, Mr. Richard Cock, and his co-trustees have shown vision and courage in their administration. In the years of severest test these virtues have been justified by the strength of the institution to meet exceptional demands upon its resources and the confidence placed in it by the public.