"PURE HARDSHIP."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 31, 7 February 1928, Page 5

"PURE HARDSHIP."

A BANKRUPT'S POSITION. BLAMED HIS PARTNER. '•'BUSINESS WAS CRIPPLED." '"Speaking for the tailoring warehouses, I am sure that this is a case of pure hardship," said one of the creditors when Henry Edward Bunker, tailor and mercer, of Auckland, met his creditors before the Official Assignee, Mr. G. X. Morris, this morning. To unsecured creditors bankrupt owed £1109 and to secured £1240. The value of securities was shown at £1600. Other liabilities were £424. the total liabilities were £1153, and the total assets, which included book debts estimated to produce £400. stock-in-trade £200, furniture and fittings £150 and cash in hand £22, amounted to £1132. Surplus from securities in the hands of secured creditors was £360. In his statement, Bunker said that until March, 1925, he had carried on business on his own account successfully. He had then gone into partnership and the business had been carried on under the name of Bunker and Co. The partnership, which had never been a success, lasted only eight months, at the end of which time he found himself with liabilities amounting to about £1800. After the dissolution of the partnership he was determined to do his best for the creditors and raised a mortgage on his house for £400 and handed his bankets an endowment policy as security against overdraft. This became due in September of 1927 and liquidated the bank's claim. The financial depression of the last eighteen months had defeated all his efforts to pay his creditors and he had been forced to file in bankruptcy in order to safeguard their interests as far as possible. '"My partner, who had sole control of the mercery department and of the leases," read the statement, 'Tan up large accounts with local firms, indented goods unknown to me, and although receiving rent from our tenants in St. Kevin's Arcade, where we had our premises, did not pay our rent to our lessors. In addition, his drawings were so heavy that the business was crippled." All through, said Bunker, his books had been kept by a public accountant. When his position was fully realised, they tried to sell the business and to sell* the lease, but had been unable to do either. Since he had filed, bankrupt had collected some book debts. Mr. Morris: Did you draw a certain amount from the business every —Yes, £7, out of which I paid the interest on my house. I am a married man with two children, one aged fourteen and the other ten. Are they both dependent upon you?— Yes. "I understand that there is nothing against this man," said Mr. Morris. '"He had not waited till the last moment when all his assets would have been eaten up." It was decided to facilitate bankrupt's discharge and a committee was appointed to assist the Official Assignee.