OUR FRUITFUL RESERVE BANK?

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19604, 17 June 1935, Page 9

OUR FRUITFUL RESERVE BANK?

(To the Editor.} Sir, —We are informed that at the recent annual meeting of the Reserve Bank in Wellington Mr Lefeaux said “it could be fairly claimed that, even in the year of Its existence the bank had not been altogether unfnultful.” One wonders in what direction it has been fruitful. If the payment of a fat dividend to shareholders and generous fees to the directors are the fruits referred to., it has certainly succeeded; but what of the ordinary working folk? What has the bank done for them? Nothing. It is within the power, or could be, of the bank to pay the farmers of New Zealand guaranteed prices for their produce, and so end the present hopeless bankthe primary industries. Again, what has the bank done for the local bodies of New Zealand? Has it provided cheap money, at 2i per cent., for tar-sealing our obsolete roads, for drainage w'orks, the building of decent homes for our workers, and a host of other desirable works —all held up for the lack of money which tha bank can so easily manufacture ?

The writer would like to take Mr Lefeaux over the majority of the Waikato roads to.see if the;.good shaking up entailed hi negotiating? the, potholes would bring to the surface a desire to do something really useful for the people of this Dominion. One would like to see the good-fellowship radiating from him as he motored over splendid sealed roads provided by funds from his bank. Is it too much to hope for? And would not achievements of that description, of benefit to all, bo something really worth while talking about? We could then all agree with the Governor of the bank If he claimed that his bank had not been “unfruitful.”—l am. etc., R. G. YOUNG. Gordonton, June 12, 1935,