WE DON'T WAST TO SELL.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1020, 16 July 1898, Page 2

WE DON'T WAST TO SELL.

The Policy of the Assets Realisation Board,

What this colony wants very badly just now is a board or trust to speedily liquidate the Bank of New Zealand Assetß Realisation Board. To propose the appointment of a board to liquidate a liqm dation board may Bound a trifle anomalous, and yet there is no other way of ridding ourselves of this ghastly burlesque than by liquidating it out of existence or throwing it bodily into the Bea. The Bank of New Zealand became a veritable curse to the country when it converted itself into a huge pawnshop and took, in pledges, many of the farms and sheep stations, and a large proportion of the stores and manufactoring businesses of New Zealand. Also, when it neglected its legitimate business of banking, and used the money of its wretched shareholders to run these properties and businesses in cutting competition with the businesses carried on by the aforesaid shareholders, it did an improper and scandalous thing.

This was fully recognised when she public credit was employed to bolster np the tottering Bank, but popular indignation was to some extent calmed by authoritative assurances that the stock of the big pawnshop would be speedily sold off and that the Bank would confine itself to legitimate banking operations in future. To this end, the Assets Realisation Board was constituted. But those authoritative assurances have not been carried out. The Assets Eealisation Board, to which the work of liquidation waß entrusted, very promptly developed into a huge trading concern, with an immense staff of officers drawing huge salaries, and it carries on briskly the keen competition with private enterprise for which the Bank of New Zealand was so conspicuous.

The sale of properties is a minor part of this Realisation Board's functions. It doesn't wont to sell, and its officials axe of the same mind. The directors and minor officers of the concern all draw good salaries from the trust so long as a fair proportion of properties remain unsold, and this accounts for the disinclination of the Board and its officials to discharge the legitimate functions of realisation. Moreover, fat billets have been found for an immense army of relatives and friends in managing the businesses and properties of the Assets Realisation Board, and the risk of throwing these favoured individuals out of employment is a farther powerful obstacle in the way of selling up the Btock of our gigantic State .pawnshop.

The annual report of the Assets Realisation Board, submitted to Parliament by Mr W. G. Foster, General Manager, bears oat our argument aa far as the meagre details made public can serve to bear anything out. The sales during 1896-7

amounted in value" to £147,548. But in tbe year 1897-8, though the market was ad mittedly good, the sales- were £79,943, or exactly one-half of what waß realised in tbe former year. Why, an energetic commission agent would Bhow better results than these, and yet -this Assets ]3oard has expensive branches in every town in the colony, which are practically maintained at the public expense.

The argument is occasionally need that the businesses" run by the Assets Board are paying a profit. But even, if this were so — and we doubt it — how is this profit earned ? Simply by a cutting competition with private enterprise, which private enterprise is taxed to bolster up the Bank and maintain this Assets Board in keen business competition with itself. The whole thing is ontrageoas. What possible chance has private enterprise in competition with a bu9ines3 concern backed by State capital, and careleßß whether its balance-sheet at the end of twelve months shows a balance of profit or loss ? Then, again, while we are lamenting the slowness of land settlement and the stagnation of the interior, and wondering -why things are as they are, this Assets Board has whole tracts of land locked up and denied to settlement. . Nay, in the South, the Government are buying estates from private individuals and cutting them up, while here little or nothing is being done to obtain those areas that are held by the gigantic pawnshop and throw them open for settlement.

Only a few weeks ago we were afforded in this city a practical and apt illustration of the disinclination of the Assets Board to realise. Mr A. McOorqnodale made an offer to purchase the Roller Mills at a substantial price, which was. we believe, equivalent to the fignre which the Board was asking for them. The snm involved was in the neighbourhood of £70,000, equal to the amount obtained from the sale of properties throughout New Zealand for the whole year, and would have realised a tidy bit of capital. Not only did the Assets Board refuse point blank to trade, however, but they also found an early excuse to punish Mr McCprquodale for his temerity by relieving him of his position as manager of the mills. This action is significant in view of the fact that Mr McCorquodale was the only manager who worked these Roller Mills at a profit.

There aie many, and powerful reaaonß why these Bank of New Zealand pledges should be realised more promptly. It is wrong that whole tracts of country should be kept locked up and closed to settlement. It is also wrong that private enterprise should be harassed and worried by competition from bosinoases financed with public moneys. It is wrong that an expensive department like this Assets Realisation one, with its numberless fat billets, should be kept going at the public expense — and it is at the public expense — and yet be permitted to lazily ignore its responsibilities and leave its legitimate functions undischarged. The whole thing amounts to a scandal, and if the people who are at the head of affairs will not proceed with the realisation of these assets, other men should be appointed to their places who will.