PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18479, 5 September 1925, Page 12

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

CANDOUR WANTED. (specially wbittht fob "tub pbess.") The report on the Public Trust Office, presented to Parliament a tew days ago, states that "The chief m tact the only point of attack was the Common Fund.". This is erroneous and misleading. From a purely economic- standpoint tiie Uou<mm Dund method of investment is practically unassailable. But it must be admitted that the Public Trustee who, alone among trustees, is empowered to adopt this metfiod, possesses an overwhelming advantage over private trustees, an advantage jwhich is maiuiig the service of trusteeship in New Zealand a State monopoly. The chief' point of the criticism was not the Common Fund as such, but the Department's method of dealing with Government tanking Fui-ds, which form, roughly, one-half of the Common Fund This point has been deliberately overlooked by. the Department in its answers to onUcs. Huge » amounting to many millions of pounds, are held in this way. Their investment is a simple process entailing but little difficulty compared with the work done in connexion with estates. Yet th profit interest accruing to the Department from the investment of these funds is at least as high as that obtained from the investment of balances at credit of estates, aid it is Jus interest which pays the expenses of the gratuitous services rendered by the Department. It is of the essence of fiJinJdng Funds that they should be used, at some time or other torepay the loans in connexion with which they have been established. happen if the. Government decided to withdraw these funds from the Department and use tbem to redeem part of our indebtedness to the Mother Country? The Department would be deprived of its greatest b^wark. The report of the Department stales fl.ltoTSSa 31st, 1925, there were 1.1676 estates under administration Of this number 37Y32 were classified. as "■Miscellaneous," their value beings JsmSZL These "Miscellaneous itates"' must be, in the main, GovemFunds. Now the Department aoousfs its critics of misrepresentation. To call Government Sinking F,mds "miscellaneous estates" is gross m The^Department rightly makes much of the security afforded by the State guarantee and justly cration for that guarantee. Bnt that remuneration should bo the property r+la State and not of the Department, IS ba L " to extend its own operations.