BANK OF NEW ZEALAND PROPOSALS.

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1778, 3 July 1926, Page 5

BANK OF NEW ZEALAND PROPOSALS.

Sir, —As a farmer I think we farmers should, aim -to get out of the clutches of the banks—not into them. The banks have not troubled themselves much about Us in the past, and our bad times have been their good times. Now that agricultural banking is becoming more than a vision the Bank of New Zealand proposes a plan which, on the surface, is intended to benefit us, but is really intended, like sudden slackening in a tug-of-war, to put farmers on their backs. Last year the Bank of New Zealand dodged! declaring a cool million profits by spending all it could spend and by giving a bonus to employees: 19s lid looks a lot less than £l. This bank shows its 150 - premises, plus landed property (foreclosures, etc.) at 1£484,103 2s lOd, and -it would be as likely to take the odd 2s 10d for, isay, a dozen of the best premises as it would be to accept the total sum for that dozen. It simply does not kno'w how to hide its profits, but i-t is after the farmers’ ewe lamb, nevertheless. The mere fact that these proposals are being put forward just now, and not five, or ten, or even twenty years ago, should b* ~-ough to condemn the scheme. Why- is it so late? Why not a little later? Another remarkable point is the steady rise in Bank of New Zealand shares during the past few weeks. Only an idiot would believe that the proposals represent any real deprivation or have any tendency to restrict dividends, when the share barometer so clearly indicates the reverse. —I am, etc., H. M. RUSH-WORTH. Opua, Bay of Islands, 30th June, 1926.