Unclaimed Bank Deposits.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 2715, 30 January 1892, Page 4

Unclaimed Bank Deposits.

(New Zealand Times.) There will presently be sorrow in the ranks of the bankers of South Australia over the Act of that colony which provides for all unclaimed moneys lying in the banks. A measure was passed last session by the Parliament of that colony which provides that all unclaimed moneys lying in the banks in excess of £5 shall, after six years, be paid into the Treasury, and shall thereupon become the property of the Crown. In these days of thoroughness, when the education of the people and the one-man-one-vote theory are beginning to animate the masses, and through them the legislators they create, how long will it be before this principle is adopted of the Crown becoming heir to the unclaimed property of the people ? It goes without saying that the shareholders of banks and other corporate bodies of a like kind have no legitimate right to deposits or dividends which belong to dead or lost men, of whose representatives nothing is known. The owners disappear down the stream of time, but the’r property, the bank balances or dividends, remain. To whom do these belong ? Not to the corporations, but to the State exactly in the same manner as the property of a man who dies intestate, and without any known representative, becomes the property of the State. Social movements of this nature are slow, but once they begin they go on. Banking and other corporations where unclaimed moneys remain and accumulate had better make the requisite calculations and the necessary reserves for the future. The past will not be interfered with by any responsible legislature, for retrospective legislation is and will remain unpopular. But, in the early future, it is more than probable that other colonies, and even the slowacting Parliament of Great Britain, will follow the example of South Australia in this matter. In strict justice it is difficult to perceive any argument which can be adduced against this new, but certainly not unfair, arrangement. The people are the legitimate heirs of unclaimed property and unclaimed dividends which belonged to men who have disappeared and left no trace. Of course, though such money may be thus absorbed by the Treasury, it will be open .for any person who can prove his next of kinship and legitimate title, to make a claim for the payment of the money to him. This is the law and the practice in connection with our own Public Trust Office in dealing with the estates of persons dying intestate and leaving no known representative. The corpus of such estate lies in the hands of the Public Trustee for six years. On the expiry of that time the money is paid to the Crown, which holds it in trust for any real heir should he ever present himself.