The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, MAECH 31 1892. The Bank of New Zealand

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 117, 31 March 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, MAECH 31 1892. The Bank of New Zealand

At the half-yearly general meeting held in London on February 10th the chairman reported that the Bank continues to make steady and satisfactory progress, and have been able not only to afford clients every reasonable facility they required but to undertake new and satisfactory business. As an evidence of the confidence held in the Bank in the colony deposits are increasing steadily. He considered, very properly, that the best proof that the bank was improving was the fact that they were in the position to declare an interim dividend, a thing they were absolutely unable to do at the same period last year. This dividend Avill be paid without considering the amount to be received from the Estates Company, and whatever comes to us on the 31st March from the Company will be the year's dividend, and will be dealt with when the accounts of the Bank for the whole year are made up, which will leave a margin to add something to the reserve fund. It is satisfactory that the Bank has not been involved in any way, or lost any money, in the numerous failures which have occurred in Melbourne, and other parts of Australia, of building societies and socalled banks. This speaks well for the management of the Bank abroad. The bank has been for some time reducing advances in Australia, feeling that they involved rather more risk than the directors cared about, and looking at the level of prices in New Zealand, it is a far safer Colony to lend money in at the present time than is Australia. He further said : " The subject which is of course uppermost in all our minds is the new Land Tax Bill. Now this has been so fully discussed and criticised both in the press and at public meeting that I do not propose to offer any opinions of my own on the subject, and especially for this reason, that I do not think it would be quite becoming for anyone who has the honor of holding the position of President of the Bank of New Zealand to criticise a measure which has been passed by a majority of the legislature of that colony. We are the Government Bank, we keep the Government account, and as such it is our duty to serve to the best of our ability any Government that may be in power, whatever complexion its politics may be, and this we shall endeavour to do. Of course, this new Bill is an experiment, and it is one which we shall all of us watch with great interest. As regards the manner in which it affects the Bank itself, and our own interests, I can tell you very shortly. As regards the banking part of our business, that is to say, quite apart from our assets in the Estates Company, it does not add in any way to our taxation. I believe in fact it somewhat reduces it, but it does hit us through the Estates Company, and in rather a peculiar way. The globo assets, which were the assets transferred bo the Estates Company, were formerly held by the Bank itself, and had they been so held now, they would not have been subject to any taxation under the new Act. Well now, the amount of tax we shall have to pay of course depends entirely upon the amount of property we retain, and, probably by the time the Bill gets into working order, we shall have considerably less than we have now. The realisations from the 31st March to the 31st September amounted roundly to about £84^000, which is not a very large amount, but we shall have, in the course of a couple of months, a very large public sale of property in the South Island, partly pastoral, and partly agricultural, something like 340,000 acres. Very great pains are being taken to make this sale a success. Terms of payment will be easy, and looking at the prosperity of the colony, and seeing how well the farmers are doing, and the enormous clip of wool they will have, I think we shall have a good attendance and fair and satisfactory prices. The result of this sale will be an excessively interesting thing, not only from the pounds, shillings, and peuce point of view, but because it will be a fair test of what the colonists of New Zealand think themselves oi! the future of land in the colony under the new regime. Of course, in the meantime, until they are sold, we shall have the profits which the properties make, and up to the preseut time all the reports are satisfactory." This report should not only be satisfactory to the shareholders but to the colony at large, indicating as it does the advent of general prosperity.