STATE MINING enterprise.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19972, 5 July 1930, Page 17

STATE MINING enterprise.

INVESTIGATIONS IN QUEENSLAND. COMMISSIONER'S FINDINGS PUBLISHED. (UNITED P&K88 ASSOCIATION —BT ELECTRIC TBLEGBAPB—COPYBIGBT.) (Received July 4th, 10.40 p.m.) BRISBANE, July 4. The Royal Commissioner's findings on the purchase by a former Queensland Government of the Mungana mine leases and the Chillagoc smelters were made available to-day. The report declares: —The management of the State smeltors by, and the conduct of, Mr Peter Goddard are generally censurable. Complete indifference had been displayed to moral and legal obligations. There had been recklessness in expenditure, unscrupulousness in administration, and dishonesty in advice, which conduct had been actuated by pecuniary and other personal advantages. The enterprise was disastrous to the State and the results aggravated by faulty management for which the Government of the day was responsible. TJiere was a deplorable laxity by the Treasury over expenditure at the- smelters and the associated mines. This was the outcome of improper business relations between Messrs E. G. Theodore, W. McCormack, Peter Goddard, and Frederick Keid, whom the Commissioner believed were guilty of fraud and dishonesty for procuring to the State the purchase of the Mungana mine for £40,000; also that the money shared between them was fraudently obtained. The Commissioner added: Mr Theodore was also guilty of the grossest impropriety in becoming associated with Mr Goddard in the Flour Spur Mining Company and the Argentum Mining Company while Mr Goddard was manager of the State smelters and was therefore debarred by statute from being associated with private ventures. Messrs McCormack and Theodore were former Premiers of Queensland. • (Received July sth, 12.55 p.m.) BRISBANE, July 4. Discussing the report to-night the Premier, Mr Moore, said that tb© question whether any action would be taken against the parties mentioned in the report was a matter for the Crown Solicitor, whose report will come before Cabinet next week. CANBERRA, July 4. Mr Theodore stated to-night that he had no knowledge of the contents of the Commissioner's report, but he would have something to say in Sydnev during the week-end when he had rend it.