BY TELEGRAPH. SPECIAL TO THE PRESS

Press, Volume L, Issue 8573, 29 August 1893, Page 5

BY TELEGRAPH. SPECIAL TO THE PRESS

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.

THE MERCANTILE BANK CASES.

FURTHER PROCEEDINGS, MELBOURNE, Augnst 22. The celebrated Mercantile Bank case h-_s again been the sensation of the week. The Grand Jury proceedings having been declared invalid by reason of the inclusion of an alien on the jury, a new private prosecutor determine*! to bring about the trial of the accused, if possible. This was Mr Chas. Cox, a sharebroker, whose solicitors applied to Mr Panton, the Police Magistrate, in the ordinary way for a summons against the Directors, the Auditors, and the Manager. Sir Graham Berry was omitted from the Directors, as he was principally in London. The charge this time was altered from conspiring to issue a false balance sheet to making and con cnrring in issuing one. Mr Panton was the Chairman of the Bench which refused to commit the same defendants for trial on the conspiracy charge, and he now refused to issue the summons, giving asjus reasons that the defendants had been greatly harassed and the country put to great expense. His refusal was received by the public with surprise and annoyance, and both the Argus and the Age reprooated his conduct severely. It was not alleged that he was acting dishonouiabty, but only out of obstinacy and wrongheadedness. The subject was also brought up in Parliament, where a whole night was spent in discussing the following motion by Mr Murray:— "That in the opinion of this House the present position of the Mercantile Bank prosecutioa'is highly unsatisfactory, and that the refusal of Mr Panton, P.M., to grant summonses against the Directors, Manager and Auditors of the Mercantile Bank demands the fullest inquiry." If Mr Murray had confined his motion to its first clause, he would without doubt have carried it, though the Government, of course, Opposed it, and as it was he only lost it by ten votes. The summonses have since been signed by a Justice of the Peace, and all the defendants arrested.