PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2218, 23 June 1891, Page 4

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

The report' of the Commissioner! whe inquired into the Public Trustees OfficO which has been laid before Parliament, its ihe most sweeping condemnation pf the way the business has been conducted that could be penned. It says that there bas been at the head office of the Public Trust an absolute want of proper or regular system up to the present time in the conduct of its business; that the books of the office have for years been kept in a careless and unfinished manner; and that the correspondence has been conducted in an unsatisfactory and irritating manner. _Thex, find .that the, system of 7au?itmg the Recounts of, the Department by the Audit Office has been in reality a delusion, and that many securities appeared year after year in the returns as good for 20a in the £, and certified to by the AuditorGeneral as correct, although some of them had long ago been foreclosed by the Public Trustee and ipso Jacto had ceased to exist. The charges made by the office are declared to have been excessive, and when £IB,OOO was taken from the profits by ike Colonial Treasurer that amount was improperly swollen by the sum of £3500. The Public Trustee is declared to haye seldom done his duty effectively in satisfying the claims of beneficiaries, or persons entitled to participate in estates, the result being great injustice to parties and the reversion to the colony of many thousands of pounds. The administration of many estates is proved to have been imprudent and unwise, beneficiaries being treated in a somewhat arbitrary, cruel manner. The system of dealing with loans and mortgages is generally condemned. Tbe.j Commissioners expressthemselves much startled by the methods adopted in disposing of personal property m estates, as disclosed in the evidence, as being not only improper, pud opto grave suspicion, but

utterly indefensible and illegal. They recommend that the management should be vestsd m a Public Trustee and Deputy Trustee, with powers nearly co-equal, ard both men oflrrge commercial and financial experience, and, that, their should be an advisory board of two commercial men of special knowledge,