The Public Trust Office.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19150, 5 November 1927, Page 18

The Public Trust Office.

The Public Trust Office depends for its existence and its progress upon nothing so much as that " State guar- " antee" for which it pays nothing at all to the guarantors, who are the taxpayers of the Dominion. Without this " State guarantee" it would not do more than a little of the business jit actually does, and instead of piling up profits for its own aggrandisement it would probably incur substantial losses.. That, however, is an aspect of the Office's special privilege which we mention only in passing. There is another aspect which is worth attention. For some time past the Office has been broadcasting through the post circular letters to citizens asking for business and offering to send officials to pay personal r calls; to explain the benefits of dealing with the Public Trustee. There • is something to be said, perhaps, for this, method of attracting business, but the Office has carried further its postal campaign. It is now distributing reprints of two newspaper articles about itself. One is a short piece from a Wellington paper which is nothing more than a

dull and lifeless paraphrase of sentences in the annual Report of the Office. The other is said to be a reprint of an article in the Mercantile Gazette of a recent date. The greater part of this article is also a paraphrase of the Office's Report, and it ends with a very vigorous eulogy of- the Office's* policy and methods. It amounts, in effect, to little less than a categorical j assertion of the perfect propriety and wisdom of everything that has been done for the Office and of everything that the Office does for itself. It includes a contemptuous reference to " unfavourable Press "criticisms," and this is interesting, because our records contain no criticism more sharply hostile to the Office nor more strongly condemnatory of it than a leading article from this same Mercantile Gazette. The conclusion of the article now circulated is a statement that the criticisms of the Office which have appeared in print "are not based upon facts, but upon "information which if it were tested " by cross-examination would prove in- " capable of sustaining the allegations

"which have been made." There has been no single criticism of the Office in these columns which has not been based upon facts. The proof of this is that, on the rare occasions when the Office has attempted to repel our criticisms, it has been unable to repel the facts (which, indeed, were taken from its own Reports). The point which we. wish to emphasise, however, !is this: that the Office is a Government Department, staffed by public servants, and "guaranteed" by the State—an Office, therefore, which should be scrupulous in its methods of answering public criticisms. It is entitled to look to its Minister for defence, and the Minister, being a politician, can use any language (within bpunds) that he pleases, and abuse the critics to his heart's content. But no' official of the Office, from its Departmental head downwards, is entitled to denounce #its critics directly or indirectly in the terras which it. has chosen for circulation through the post at the public expense. In no other Department would such a thing be permitted, and in no other Department is such a thing ever attempted. It is difficult to believe that the Minister in charge, who happens to be the Prime Minister, can approve of this departure from sound Departmental i practice. I