Earning Power of the Bank. Your Committee see no reason to think that the information given to the Joint Committee on the Bank of New Zealand in 1895 was incomplete or in accurate as regards the working of the Bank of New Zealand for the period between the beginning of September, 1895, and 31st March, 1896. The evidence supports the view that the earnings of the Bank have fairly justified the estimate laid before the Joint Committee of 1895, allow ance being made for the fact that some £14,000 per annum, estimated to arise from Government business in London on inscription account and otherwise, could not be given to the Bank as intended, owing to legal disabilities. Your Committee have anxiously inquired as to the future prospects of the Bank; and, although the expecta tions of the witnesses vary as to degrees of success that may be anticipated, the evidence all points to the stability of the Bank and to its being able to make sufficient profit to justify the action of the Legislature in 1895. At the same time, your Committee think it right to say that they have no doubt that the exposure of the Bank's business through the medium of the parliamentary inquiry has done and is doing considerable mischief, aud that if proceedings of that kind are repeated the share profits of the Bank must be seriously endangered.
