A NOTABLE RECORD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1938, Page 6

A NOTABLE RECORD

MR W. WATSON’S SERVICE AS BANK DIRECTOR

RETURNING IN MARCH NEXT (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. At the annual meeting of shareholders of the Bank of New Zealand today Mr William Watson, who presided in the absence, through illness, of the chairman of directors (Mr A. T. Donnelly), announced that he intended to retire from the directorship on the exporation of his present term of office, on March 31, 1939. “I served for more than four years as your President when the Head Office was first brought to Wellington in 1894, and after continually as one of your representatives since the alteration of the bank’s constitution and board at January 1, 1899 —in all, 431 years to date of retirement,” Mr Watson observed.

“I sincerely thank you for the confidence reposed in me during all these years; the service has been my pride and pleasure, and were it not for my advanced age, I should again place myself in your hands for re-election. “As this is the last time that, as a member of the board, I can address you regarding the bank’s affairs, I would just say that my opinions of the success of the Bank of New Zealand given to the Committees of the two Houses of Parliament in the year 1895, and at your meetings since then to the effect that, given good management, the bank could not fail to prosper, have never changed. You have that management now; it will be with much regret that I shall part from the General Manager and staff with whom I have been so long associated, and for whom I have the highest regard and respect.”