THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3569, 24 July 1890, Page 2

THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Referring to tho above institution the Hawk's Bay Herald sayj :—"We certainly do not feel called upon to defend the Bank of New. Zealand, liut it is really amusing ? to:read some. of the funny things said against it. The Wellington Press, for . instance, is getting quite hysterical, and drifts into the most ludicrous mistake?. Writing (or rather shrieking) on : Friday, it lays it on to the Bank of New Zealand in this slap-dash fashion: —" Wo have still thehorrible scandal of the Land Company that, under tho auspices of the Bank of Now Zealand induced tho Gisborne and Ea?t Coast natives to part with hundreds of thousands of acroa of their land. for worthless sciip, which was purposely made unnegotiable, and which has left hundreds of those natives deprived of their land in poverty, to menace the peace of the district." This sort of thing'may do for Wellington, but it will cause rniny of our readers to smile, even though the provocative of the smile may also arouse some bitter memories. Unfortunately a Areat many Napier people know more of the company alluded to than tho Press apparently does. A large number of shares are held by people here, and those unfortunates know that it is not the Bank of New Zealand they have to blame for their troubles, or for the troubles that have come upon the natives. That company was formed by a«oterie of the staunches!; " Liberals" the country holds, and their rhetorical stock-in-trade was abuse of the Bank of New wilder than even that ladled' out by the Press, The bank has lent money on somo of t the lands since the company was' formed, but we have yet to learn that lending money is a crime, Tho Press stumbles near, if not the truth, then surely tho way to reach it, when it speaks in another part of the article as follows: —" If anyone .desires to measure the craft of the Native with tho deceptive powers of the European, let him read from first to last the story of the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company," Sydney Taiwhanga is preaching from that text in the House now, and he wants to know, not who lent money on the security of these lands, but

who has had that money (said to bs 1150,000), and what has become of it, If the Press is anxious for justice, and has not got 'a Bank of New Zealand heo in its bonnet, let it read.

the list of questions Sydney Taiwhanga I has prepared, and assist ns in demanding what we have waited for for years —an answor to thos» questions."