ROYAL TRIBUTE TO ACCOUNTANTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 244, 16 October 1939, Page 3

ROYAL TRIBUTE TO ACCOUNTANTS

••IMPORTANT POSITION IX THE STATE" H.R.11. the Duke of Kent was Ihe principal guest al the Guildhall dinner of the English Incorporated Accountants’ Society. “Although accountancy is a comparatively young profession, it has in the last halt century earned for itself a position of national importance," said His Roy;-. Highness. "The profession of ac countancy certainly owes its important position in the State to-day to the enormously increased perplexity of finance, that directly affects every one of us. The smooth working of direct taxation in this country can be attributed very largely to the relations established between your profession the Inland Revenue authorities ;u 1 the taxpayer.” -11 l reply, Mr. Walter Holman, president of the societS said he hesitated to refer to accountancy as the “Cinderella" of the professions lest he should be tempted to indicate the identity ol the elder sisters, and even to refer to their physical detractions. (Laughter). But if they were indeed the ‘ Cinderella" of the professions, that at least was their great night because they had met the Prince, and if he appeared anxiously to watch the clock it would be realised that he was concerned not to over-stay the specified hour of departure. (Laughter). When Lord Baldwin was Prime Minister, in the course of one of his speeches he used these words: “A farm is more and more a factory, and, where the machine enters, the inspector, the accountant, and the auditor, like Mary’s lamb, are sure to follow. For the machine, if the frier.c. of man, is also Ihe enemy of freedom and personality.” Mr. Holman interpreted that to mean that the inspector, the accountant and the auditor entered in ordei to off-set the detrimental effects of the machine, and they did that, ano it sometimes they succeeded only in demonstrating the fallibility ot the human element, that must be attributed to the inspector rather Ilian to the accountant and the auditor. <Laughter). For it was of the very essence of professional activity that it was neither mechanical nor impersonal. It required the minimum of outside regulation and control in order that there might be full scope for individual skill, initiative and personality, and it carried with it personal responsibility and liability for the proper dscharge of duties undertaken. (Hear, hear). Those were characteristics, he submitted, which were of growing importance in a world whose affairs became increasingly complicated and whose processes became increasingly mechanised, and thev formed an indication of the task which faced professional bodies such as theirs, which were charged with the duty of deciding the terms of admission tn the profession. and of influencing the conditions in which its members could practise.