PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 32, 1 November 1937, Page 6

PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

The Minister of Finance, in his speech in Parliament on Xuesday, nghtly etressed the fact that the people' s savings, a& represented by de- " posits in the Post Oifice Savings Bank, were supported by the entire resources of the country. Their security has nevey been in doubt, and the experience of many years .will have shown the authorities, in the same manner as it has the trading banks} the proportion of liquid funds that must be kept avaiiable for the ordinary day to day business. The growth of the deposits has been of great assistance to the Government by providing iunds for the public works policy, a,ud other activities. The Minister deprecated any reference to the matter that might have the elfect of ehaking the confidenco of tho depositors. The State could not afford to have the stability of the institution adversely aifected and nothing could be more emphatic than .the assurance given by the Minister of Fin- * ance regarding the security of the amounts held on deposit. Hut if Mr Nash felt impelled to rebut in blunt terms what he regarded as an attempt to discredit the Government in its control of the Post Oflice Savings Bank, says the Waikato Times, he should remember that on his side of the House are members who have not been at all times as careful as they might have been in their references to the same subject. In 1935 the present Prime Minister moved a want of confidence amendment to the Aclclress-in-iieply, and in the course of his speech he made some very wild statements. Among other things he alleged that some of the money had been iUvested in what he called "dud'* securities, yet on Tuesday his colleague, the Minister of Finance, was at pains to explain to the House that tho money avaiiable was being utilised in the same manner as it always had been utilised and invested, Perliaps the memory of politicians is as short as they are said to assufne the memory of the public to be. In 1935 Mr Savage said: "If an undue run took place to-morrow it (the Savings Bank) would be compeiied to suspend payment." Clearly rash statements with regard to the institution have not all been made by critics of the present Administration. Mr Savage added the promise that when Labour ruled "it will invest these deposits to better advantage than they are invested to-day," but with Labour in oflice the country has the assurance of the Minister of Finance that the inveetments are being made in the usual way, that is5 in Government securities, and they constitute agilt-edged security. The growth of the deposits ib an indication of the improved conditions prevailing within the Dominion, and convincing evidenee that the value of personal thrift is still reoognised by a very large number of people.