The Banking Inquiry.

Hastings Standard, Issue 113, 5 September 1896, Page 3

The Banking Inquiry.

[By Telegraph]

(Front our Special Correspondent.)

Wellington, This day

Mr Watson, in answer to Mr Montgomery, stated before the Banking Committee yesterday morning that with the exception of Mr Booth's dissent to Henry McKenzie's appointment, no dissent was recorded on the Board's minut.es. The management of the Bank had not been injuriously affected by the fact that there had been occasional differences at the Board. He could not say what properties had come under the control of the Estates Company since its formation. He would look into the matter. Mr Montgomery : The effect of placing the dead amounts in the Estates Company would show a misleading balance-sheet for the Bank, would it not ? Witness said that would depend on the value placed on them in the books. The Estate Company was formed as a burying ground for dead assets of the bank. He did not say, however, that this had always since been done. Mr Montgomery said it would be an easy method of paying dividends to pay the bad debts of the bank into the Estates Company and so benefit the bank profit and loss account. Witness said this was so, but he did not think it had been done. Witness, continuing, said there was no £150,000 advanced to the Colonial Bank by the Bank of New Zealand. He declined to disclose the business of the Government in regard to the transaction of the purchase of £150,000 of Government consols. Mr Montgomery asked whether the witness did not think that transaction made the Government interested in the stability of the Colonial Bank. Witness again declined to answer questions relating to the disclosure of private business. Witness, continuing said the reason Mr Buller and Mr Litchfield were given three years' engagements as inspectors of the Bank of New Zealand was because of their ssrvices in connection with the banking amalgamation. He had suspicions, however, that there were other reasons. Mr Montgomery asked what these suspicions were ? Witness emphatically declined to disclose his suspicions ; he was not going to give his suspicions as evidence. Witness was afraid of the information these inspectors had obtained during the Colonial Bank transaction. So far as he knew the officers did not ask for three years' engagements. There had been no quarrel among the directors, and the only case in which dissent was recorded in the minutes was when Mr Booth objected to the appointment of Mr Henry Mackenzie as general manager, The management of the bank was not injuriously effected by any <lisse»t that might exist among the directors, because dissent existed on every board.