POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1940, Page 6

POLICY

MAN. z'NT UNDER REVIEW CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATION OPPOSED. MR JONES'S MOTION DEFEATED. “That the Trustees ascertain what steps would be necessary to hand over the management of the Trust to the Public Trustee to be administered on similar lines to the T. G. Maearthy Trust.” was a motion before a meeting of the Masterton Trust Lands Trust last night, notice of which had been given at the last meeting of the Trust by Mr A. Owen Jones. The motion, which was seconded by Air IL Page, was defeated by six votes to two. The voting was: For, Messrs Jones and Page; against, Messrs JI. P. Hugo (chairman), K. Krahagen, E. G. Eton, J. Mael'arlane lining', 11. JI. Daniell, and C. E. Grey. Air J. H. Ilandyside was absent. “We should show at least four per cent clear bn all our properties, stated Mr Jones in moving the motion. "The whole trouble is that our rents are too low." Mr Jones contended that nine men could not run the Trust, drawing a parallel with a stock company and its directorate. "We have to separate production from distribution, which is on a very different footing, and must put it on a proper business basis,” observed Mr Jones. “The trust is not being run on a proper business basis. The Maearthy Trust ” Mr Hugo: “I think you are wrong Mr Daniell: “Do you think we should buy a 'pub'?” "On the amount of capital we should be able to distribute more than one half per cent. No Trustee would be prepared to accept it personally," stated Mr Jones. “We should get at least £3,500 or more as a return. I contend that we are not getting a sufficient return for the amount of capital.” “Although I have been on the Trust only a short time it did not take me long to see what a wonderful asset to the district the Trust was. but like Mr Jones I do not consider that for the length of time the Trust has been operating it was showing sufficient return,” stated Mr Page, seconding the motion. “A business can only go ahead or go back, it cannot stand still. The figures are not what they should be Mr Laing: “Is one idea that all rents should be substantially increased?” Mr Jones: “I thought that I had made it clear that the expenditure was all right. I definitely said that on the whole rentals were not giving sufficient returns.” “I am very sorry that Mr Jones has made such remarks .... I take it as a slur on me,” stated Mr Hugo, when giving a review of the Trust s administration (reported in full elsewhere in this issue). “May I congratulate the chairman on his excellent report,” stated Mr Krahagen. “As one associated with the older trustees Masterton is very fortunate in that it has had the best representatives of the community to conduct its affairs in Messrs C. E. Daniel, Feist Renal! Free, Coradine, etc. I know that 95 per cent of the people of Masterton are satisfied with the trusts administration. Mr Jones meant well, but it was a want of confidence in the Trust and was very unfair indeed. Rent was what a business could pay.” Mr Page: “We are too soft; that’s the whole trouble.” “It is only a matter of time before we realise on our vacant sections,’ stated Mr Krahagen in pointing out that the Wairarapa High School and the old Masterton Technical School owed their existence to the Trust. Mr Jones: “Paid for out of reserves we should have been holding.” Mr H. H. Daniell explained that the Government valuation went up in the middle of the last boom, and the Trust was rated on the unimproved value. “That is our greatest difficulty,” said Mr’Daniell. “It is a question of supply and demand.” “It does seem more or less to point to an indictment of the Trust and Mr Jones himself. Mr Jones has been a member longer than I have and has approved of rentals which came before the building committee,” observed Mr Laing. Mr Daniell had stressed that rentals were a matter of supply and demand of the market value. If it could be shown that rentals were below the market value in Masterton considerable comment would have been heard from others and from those in competition who wished to take up leases. It was not the case the Trust was only partly developed. “I am very strongly against the motion and entertain a feeling of resentment that 1 as a trustee I should be more or less charged with mismanagement,” added Mr Laing. “Mr Jones’s chastisement has been a severe one,” stated Mr Eton. “I am very surprised that he got a seconder.' It is a case of two hares and a lot of hounds. I am at a loss to find the reason for the fault finding.” Mr C. E. Grey: “I wish to oppose the motion. In ten or twelve years our assets will be in a very strong position." After further discussion the motion was put to the meeting and defeated.