PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1928, Page 7

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE

CUSTODIAN OF MILLIONS. ITS FUNCTIONS. (Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee.) The Public Trust Office was established in 1872. It was the creation of one of Sir Julius Vogel’s happy insipratiom and for fifty-six years it has continued in increasing measure to realise the aspirations of the author o*f its existence. Its beginnings were modest enough. it did not actually enter upon active business until 1873 and in that year *it was entrusted with the administration of 257 estates of a total value of £17,600. Last year it was administering 15,800 estates of a tota.’ value of £44,155,548 and possessed an “ Office Reserve ” of nearly £700,000. In the Official Year Book it is explained that the “Office is designed.mainly to afford at low rates of commission a secure and convenient recourse in any case where a person residing in New Zealand or abroad, and desiring to draw a will, form a trust, or appoint an agent or attorney in the Dominion, may be in doubt or difficulty as to the choice of a trustee, executor, agent, or attorney.” It is further explained that “ the Office also aims at relieving those who for various reasons may be unwilling or unable to commence or continue the administration df trust property to which they may have been appointed.” These are the functions of the Office and that they have been, on the whole, satisfactorily discharged may be judged from the continued popularity of tne institution. INFORMATION REQUIRED.

There are some features of the administration and activities of the Office, however, which seem to require further elucidation than is provided in its annual report and in the very interesting review of that document by the Public Trustee himself. With the passage of years the operations of the Office have been widely extended. Successive Ministries have found it convenient to hand over to the Public Trustee various responsibilities and authorities which could not he so conveniently entrusted to the head of any other State Depart r ment. Parliament has been ready enough to endorse this practice and during the war it was greatly extended. The Office is now involved in the administration of all classes of business, small and great, a brewery which recently arrested the attention of Sir Robert Stout in t}ie Legislative Council, being among them, and as a result it has been drawn into competition with occupations, trades and professions of all descriptions. That its ad-, ministration, for the most part, ha? been admirable appears to be recognised on all sides, and the results il has obtained testify to this effect. A member of the Labour Party whe roundly stated in the House of Representatives a few days ago that a vendetta was being carried on against the Office has had the grace to withdraw his imputation and apologise, so that this aspect of the subject may be se! aside altogether. But there still are features cf the administration and ac tivities of the Office, as already mentioned, open to inquiry. SOME INSTANCES. There is, for instance, the position of the various trading departments of the which are m active competition with private enterprise, and should be subject to the same taxation and other obligations as are private undertakings of the same character. This is a point which at this time of day should need no further emphasis. The public conscience has accepted the axiom that when the State enters into business it must hear the same burdens as are imposed upon private enterprise. Then there is some mystery, which doubtless could be cleared up, in connection with what is known as the Common Fund. It has been stated that the depositors -in this fund received interest varying from 4£ per cent to 5J per cent, and that their money is forthwith invested on mortgage at rates returning the Office from 1 per cent to P er cent over this rate. The Office appears to have in this Common Fund over two millions of money under the provisions of the Local Bodies Loans Act. The loss of 20 per cent upon the yearly income from that sum would not be inconsiderable, and as some of these sinking funds continue for thirty or forty years the local bodies may he paying dearly for their security. It is significi/it in this respect that the Teachers Superannuation Fund and the Railway Superannuation Fund both have been withdrawn from the Common Fund and invested to greater advantage.

AVellington, September 21st, 192 S