WANTS SYDNEY PARCEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 6

WANTS SYDNEY PARCEL

VICHY GOVERNMENT

LEFT BY A CONSUL

(0.C.) SYDNEY, May 10. 1 Efforts by the Vichy Government to obtain possession oi a brown paper parcel at present resting in the safe [deposit ol a Sydney bank were mentioned in the Prothonotary's Court this week. The parcel was left at the bank in February this year by the then ViceConsul for France. M. Frank Puaux. The French State is :laiming ownership of the parcel and claims that the Bank of New South Wales is detaining its property. The Vichy Government claims that j the parcel contains private codes, files, telegrams, confidential Consular documents, and the key to the combination of the safe in the French Consulate!

An affidavit by John Otto Stevenson, solicitor acting for the bank, set out that Puaux, on February 7 deposited a brown paper parcel endorsed—"To be kept in safe custody and to be handed over to Mr. Rosenblum. solicitor, at his request." The endorsement bore Puaux's signature. The parcel was accompanied by an authorisation directing the bank to hand the parcel to Sosenblum if he requested it.

Stevenson said that the bank was not aware of the nature of the contents of the parcel. Puaux. the bank had been informed, was now in New Caledonia, but Mr. Rosenblum was unwilling to give his exact address without instruction from M. Puaux himself.

The bank asked the Court to call upon the French State to show cause why an order should not be made for Frank Puaux to appear in the Supreme Court and state the nature and particulars of his claim to the brown paper parcel.

The Prothonotary (Mr. W. H. Hazelton) granted the order.