THE BANKER’S JOB

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1938, Page 6

THE BANKER’S JOB

PROFESSOR B. E. MURPHY’S IDEAS SOME POLITICAL AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES (By Telegraph—Press Association. ) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Some of you sitting here may live to see the job of bankers entirely different from what it is today, even if it is not entirely abolished” said Professor B. E Murphy, at the smoke concert of the New Zealand Bank Officers’ Guild last night. The job of a banker was to be a gentleman and a leader in the community, in a city as well as in a rural district, he said. It was his job to weigh character, ability and “creditworthiness” and a choose among competing forms of investment. But if the trend toward Socialism continued the work of bankers would alter entirely. They would not have to consider borrowers’ characters, because there would be no borrowing. If a community ,went on to Socialism , the worthiness of a person to receive credit would be decided on political policy. That might be coming and it might not be coming, but he believed the tasks and problems of bankers would not be less difficult in the future than in, the past. Mr H. F. von Haast said one only had to look at Alberta to see what injury could be done by people possessed by an impossible fad. They had done things contrary to the constitution and had attempted to muzzle the Press. In any country there should be freedom of discussion on any scheme. It was necessary for bank officers to spread abroad the real doctrines, so far as they believed them, of sound finance, to see that private banks were not doomed to extinction and to see that they were able to carry on their business for the benefit of the community, as they had done in the past.