THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1912. A FINANCIAL REVIEW.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 9 December 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1912. A FINANCIAL REVIEW.

The full text of the speech made by Sir N. MacLaurin, President of the Bank of New South Wales, at the annua! meeting on Tuesday, November 2<sth, has just reached us. The cable gave ue a summary of the speech, but it did not do justice to the chairman's revibw of the financial position. Sir N. MacLaurin pointed out that the deposits showed the small increase of '£290,000 in the'aggregate, but there pid expansion of the deposits in the aggregate of the deposits -lield from' the various Governments. He mentioned that the arrest in the growth of the deposits was-a? feature of banking generally in Australasia at the present time. Thie he ascribed to a spending impulse—public and private —which had arisen out of a rather rapid expansion of the deposit s i,n 4he' few preceding years. This impulse' had outstripped, for the time being, tfie a<ramiilati% power derived from the money receipts for our prima ly products. The president might have added that the 'increased expenditure was largely upon motor ears'. This, ~at anyrafce, has been the experience in New. Zealand. Thereare; Jkwever.j: other conditions which have tended to produce a stringency in the money market. These were briefly referred to by Sir N. MaoLaurin when lie wa« dealing witdi 'the subject of lean s and advances. There had, he said, been an increase in this direction of £928,000, which was small compared with that af the previous year. He attributed the increase to some extent to the bona fide requirements of traders, arising <mt of increased imparts. "But," ho says, " a good deal pf it arises from commitments of country clients in connection with extensions of their more particularly in relation to the cutting up of large estates for closer state of affairs f referred to at last halfyearly meeting, when I. said that we ; had deemed, it needful to put some ,rostruiticm on, our borrowing cfieota. Wo still coasider it desirable to mainj tain a strictly conservative policy, consistently, howevor, with a rfia sanabla support of legitimate trading requirements, especially those in connection with tbo financing of th® wool [and wheat crops, which! at this time of th« year call for x good deal of money to move them. We hope that tlia steady influence whick bankers generally throughout Australasia, is tli« •xerois® of a fjnd«®t fipiit,

are using tojwirds their borrowing clients will 1 "soon have the effect of restoring the financial etjuilibi ium. But it cannot ho too clearly understood, that this steadying influence, jto !je thoroughly effective, must bo j exerted all round by those who have J the control of the large affairs of the J country —public and private—and this I is applicable to legislation as well as I to action."