BUILDING SOCIETIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18166, 3 November 1930, Page 3

BUILDING SOCIETIES.

PROTECTION OF INTERESTS FEDERATION SUGGESTED. A suggestion that a Dominion federation of building societies should be formed was made at the annual meeting of the Mutual Benefit Building and Investment Society hold at Christchurch last week by the chairman (Mr W- C. Bean). Mr Bean said that two years ago he had expressed the hope that no Government and no Parliament would ever do anything that would cripple or hamper the operations of societies such as their own, and a great many others throughout the Dominion. During the existence of their own society it had assisted a large number of people to buy homes, in, he considered, a very praiseworthy manner. * Therefore, he added, it was with regret that he had to state that in the last few days of the session of Parliament a Finance Bill had been introduced containing a clause, which, if carried, would have been extremely detrimental to building societies. “Is the time not ripe for the building societies throughout the Dominion to get form some sort of association that would watch their interests? Mr Bean asked. Such an association would require to have its headquarters in Wellington in order to be able to watch closely any legislation that affected their interests. The matter would be considered by the directors and he believed that something would be done. It was very unfortunate that a Bill introduced in the last week of - the session should contain a proposal so detrimental to the interests of building societies as one preventing them from accepting deposits for a period of less than three months, and it showed them that must be on the alert in order to guard against such legislation. Mr J. J. Thompson said that the idea of forming a federation of building societies should be well supported. The Rev. W. Baumber said it would be a great pity if anything were done by Parliament that would weaken the position of building societies. Many thousands of people had been assisted by building societies and it would be a sad thing if they were restricted in their operations.