HUMAN NATURE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20893, 24 November 1937, Page 10

HUMAN NATURE

MAN’S FAITH INCREASED That his experience in sittings of Mortgage Adjustment Commissions had increased his faith in human nature was a statement made by Mr W. R. Tuck, M.A., chairman of one of the commisisons sitting in Auckland, in a luncheon address to members of the Auckland Creditmen’s Club. Mr Tuck said this was true of his experience in both rural and city areas. He paid a tribute to the sincerity of both applicants and respondents. Exceptions were almost rare. There were those who came to seek benefits to which they were perhaps not justly entitled, and those whose resistance seemed at times stubborn to a stupid degree, but such cases were comparatively few. Mr Tuck mentioned, too, the magnificent co-operation which he had found to exist between men and women folk. Wherever a strong effort was being made to meet liabilities there was nearly always the fullest co-operation between husband and wife, and it was due to that that many of them had been able to carry on at all during the worst years.

Speaking of the work to which the commissions v.’ere set, Mr Tuck said that the way was not always plain in the determination of values. In town as well as in the country, however, it was never a piece of guesswork, but was based in the main on the evidence of experts, and in the main the experts did not differ widely. Speaking broadly, the troubles met with arose to a great extent as a result of a time of unusual prosperity, being followed by a severe and prolonged depression. Maladjustments were caused which had a disturbing effect on human heart and mind.

It was to be hoped that the adjustments following the work of the commissions would give, for a while at least some semblance of stability to values, on which business arrangements could be based. A feature of these adjustments was the renewed heart and hope and purpose which they gave.