PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 256, 27 September 1929, Page 8

PUBLIC TRUST OFFICE.

REPORT TO PARLIAMENT. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 27. Sir Joseph AVard contributes a general statement in regard to the report of the Public Trustee which v as presented to the House of Representatives to-day. During the year 35U8 new estates and funds of a value of £7,091,360 were accepted. The value of the estates and funds under administration is £48,334,790. The Minister in charge states that unremitting attention on the part of the Public Trustee is required to find investments both for the continuous flow of money into the common fund, representing cash at credit of estates and funds, and for those estates and funds whose moneys do not fall into the common fund. During tho year tho volume of investments has been heavy. The investments controlled by the office, which at 31st March, 1928, stood at £28,465,963, had reached a total of £30,935,141, on 31st March last. Critics have at times implied that moneys coming into the hands of the Public Trustee are diverted from channels which are useful to the community as a whole. This, however, is not the case and, as the Public Trustee shows in his report, advances are made for the erection of houses by dwellers in the towns, to farmers on the security of their lands, to business men on their city properties, to local bodies, harbour boards, hospital boards, etc., to finance works of public utility. The funds are thus placed where they will assist the business community and the farming industry as well as public bodies throughout the country. “There is no doubt,” says Sir Joseph AV-ard in his preface to the Public Trustee’s report, “that a lowering of the rate of interest on loans by the Public Trustee, in order to make cheaper money available to borrowers would be a grave breach of trust, and if any grounds existed for the belief that the funds invested by the Public Trust Office wero not being invested at the current rate obtainable on good trustee securities, confidence in the office would be shaken. A reduction in the present rate charged to borrowers would be followed by a reduction in the income of those persons whose interests the Public Trustee is bound to safeguard, many of them women and young children already inadequately provided for, and dependent for their living on the income derived from tho funds held by the Public Trustee on their behalf. Any reduction in the rate charged by the Publio Trustee must therefore follow and not precede any general fall in interest rates in the open market.”