TIN HARE INQUIRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 219, 15 September 1932, Page 9

TIN HARE INQUIRY.

WHERE DID MONEY GO?

JUDGES ON PERJURY.

POSSIBLE PROSECUTIONS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 9. On Wednesday the inquiry into the tin hare licenses closed with the address of Mr. Monahan, who has acted throughout as legal adviser to the Commissioner. He admitted that no specific charge of corruption had been made out against any of the members of the late Lang Government, hut he maintained that it was impossible for Mr. Gosling, who had charge of the matter, to "saddle Cabinet with the whole responsibility, as he had done. In Mr. Monahan'3 opinion, the method of handling the applications and granting the licenses was open to the strongest criticism, and the term "maladministration" appeared too weak to express his views adequately. Mr. Justice Rogers, as Commissioner, had already intimated that some of the evidence —for instance, the statements made by Barry—might be disregarded altogether, and he had also told several of the witnesses that it' was impossible to take seriously some of the testimony that they tendered. Further, he evidently agrees with Mr. Monahan that "Judge" Swindell exercised an extraordinary amount of influence in regard to the granting of licenses. And when a man receives very large sums for the promotion of certain objects, when those who secure his support attain their end, and those who fail to enlist his aid are disappointed, he has only himself to blame if his connection with such a business is regarded with suspicion. Mr. Monahan does not assert specifically that any individual,. or that any member pi the late Government, actually took' a bribe. But he points to the large sums received by Swindell, and his constant and successful efforts to secure a monopoly of certain advantages for I himself, and he suggests that "the

money must have gone somewhere," and therefore there, was corruption as well as maladministration. But his Honor must now draw his own conclusions. The first stage of the inquiry is over, and the investigation into the fruit machines begins to-day. Here again the general public has been invited to expect sensational disclosures. Mr. Justice Rogers has said that there have been many cases of false swearing since this Commission started operation, but he has decided not to recommend any prosecutions for perjury. He leaves it to the Crown to decide what steps, if any, shall be taken now. Almost at the time when Mr. Justice Rogers was making this comment, Judge Coyle, at the Quarter Sessions, was remarking that "perjury in the Courts was so rife that he estimated that it was committed in 50 per cent of the cases." It seemed to him, said the learned judge, that "the oath in this country has now no sanctity," and that many men and women, having taken the oath, are at once prepared "to lie like the prbverbial gas meter." On the same day Mr. Justice Armstrong, at the Appeals Court, had occasion to state that much of the evidence submitted to him in a case just closed was false, and that it appeared to constitute "one of the most deliberate examples of perjury that had ever come under his notice." Perhaps if the law officers of . the Crown put all these facts together, they may feel impelled to take serious action in regard to some of the more flagrant instances of perversion and suppression of the truth that occurred during the tin hare investigation.