FINDING APPLAUDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 259, 2 November 1933, Page 7

FINDING APPLAUDED.

Athens Court Will Not Deport Samuel Insull. AMERICAN REQUEST REFUSED. ATHENS, November 1. The trial was concluded yesterday of Samuel Insull, formerly a United States business magnate, who was arrested on August 26 at the request of the American Government. The Court decided that although Insull possibly had violated the letter of the law it was without fraudulent intentions. Furthermore, Insull, using his good name and his personal guarantee had done everything he could to maintain the credit of his company. Moreover, after his bankruptcy he had remaine'd in America and surrendered his wife's fortune. The Court's decision was received with loud applause. The rise and fall of Samuel Insull, the London-born financier, reads more like an imaginative romance than cold ] fact. Beginning life in England as a junior j clerk at 5/ a week at the age of 14, he ultimately became probably the greatest one-man controller of companies in the world. In 1892 he formulated his scheme to monopolise the electrical facilities of Chicago and the Middle-West of the United States. His Public Service Company of Northern Illinois prospered, and in 20 years' time he was able to inaugurate the Middle-West Utilities, with consolidated assets of £250,000,000- This was said to have been doubled when the stock crash of 1929 came. Insull defied the omens, and continued working all his companies at full pressure, buying stocks in the usual manner. However, in April of last year the Middle-West Utilities went into receivership through inability to meet a debt of £1200, and next day Insult's second investment company followed suit. A Federal judge ordered his removal from control, and Insull resigned from 56 corporations, and sailed for Europe. He went to Francc, Italy and Greece, where he was arrested some months ago on request from the United States Government. However, he was set at liberty, as there was no extradition treaty between the two countries. He was subsequently rearrested and tried according to Grecian law.