The Bank Agreement.

Manawatu Herald, 29 October 1895, Page 2

The Bank Agreement.

We take the following sensible piece of reasoning from the leading columns of our Southern contemporary of Saturday : — When the critic- cau fiud nothing better to lay tiold of than ihe fact that Mr Watson, the President of thrt Bank of New Zealand, holds 230 .-haves in the Uo.oniai Bank, they must have run Vc-ry short of material. Mr Watson, as everybody know-*, was f inn r y in In ! empl y of the Colonial Bank, and if he then became to a small extent a shareholder in that institution , hU ac bn wa^ entire'y innocent and natural. The success or failure of the arrangement betwe-n tun two banks might possibly ufLct Mr Wat son's shares to the extent of £50 or £100, dug as that gentleman, in ad dition to being a highly salaried official, happens, we believe, to possess ample private means, it is too childish to suggest that in a matter of the mo-t vital import to hi-* own reputation and standing be would con-ciously or unconsc ously p.mui so petty an interest to affect his judgment and honesty. The more serious objections taken by the attacking party were levelled agaiast t.be value of the Colonial Bank's business. Particular stress was laid upon th' faot thu the di'ectors oi heßmkuf NiW Zealand had been cautious and p<udent enough tore fiise to take over- some of the Colonial Bank's accounts at alt, and to retain taorr than £800,000 of the purchase noon-y as cover t > another poi* i.m of the fel ing Bank's business. It was gravely .suggested that these precautions on the part of the Bank of New Zealand directors were evidence of the comparative wortblessness of the business they had purchased. It would be much fairer and more reasonable to recognise that the ar» rangemems insisted upon by the President and directors of the Bank of No.w Zdaland were simply so much evidence of the business capacity and reaolutft careful lneas of those gentlt mn. c tn^' * nat even if Mr Watson and his < irectora Were not known to be stmwd and suong-mind-ri men of bush ess, we 1 capable of holding their own in the malting of a bargain, that every line of their agreement with the Colonial B ink would bear testimony to their strength of mind as business men.