THE BANKING LEGISLATION.

Evening Star, Issue 10701, 13 August 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BANKING LEGISLATION.

♦ THE HON. MR WARD'S SPEECH. (Continued.) I will refer shortly to one or two matters raised by the hon. member for Wellington City (Mr Duthie). H«re is one instance of the gross injustice and absolute unreliability of his statements. I cannot use stronger language in this House, because I have to conform to the Standing Orders, but if I were to forget myself and depart from them, I think it would be justifiable. What did the hon. member for Wellington City (Mr Duthie) say ju3t now ? He said there was a promissory note with my name on it given for ' £55,000 that wa<* not worth a penny. ( Mr Duthie : Not worth the penny stamp ! that was upon it. ' Mr Ward : " That it was not worth the 1 penny stamp that was upon it." Would the ' hon. member be surprised to know that ' after the Supreme Court at Dunedin had ' destroyed £23,000 of my securities that were ' paying uot less than 8 per cent, per annum - on that value—that after that had been, • by the action of the Court, made worthies?, ' £8,500 in cash was offered for the securities J that £55,000 promissory note represented, J and was refused by the same Judge who had j previously said the promissory note was not ' worth the paper it was written upon, ai i < which Mr Duthie now has the hardihood to < repeat. Since the Judge refused to accept - £8,500 the liquidators of the Colonial Bank ' have sold a portion of the equities repre- * sented by the £55,000 promissory note for r £3,500 cash. The two liquidators have ' filed statements in the court to this v effect, and also that thej have further e securities still to realise upon. Where does e the value of the penny stamp eome in ? n Mr Duthie: I should require evidence, f Where is it? j;

Mr Ward : The evidence, sir, is to be found exactly where the hon. gentleman got his other evidence from, only it hae not been convenient for him to discover it. The evidence la to be found in the law courts, filed in the reoorda of the Supreme Court at Dun* edin. It ia there to be found that £8,500 waa offered for the equities represented by the £55,000. promissory note, after the whole of any then personal earning power—whioh waa over £B,OOO per annum—had been destroyed by the Supreme Court, and also £23,000 of Bhares, whioh had earned not lees than 8 per cent, per annum, had been destroyed by the extraordinary action of the Court in the first instance. Liter on, indepently of this House, I Bhall Btate my whole position in connection with those matters. But the hon, member attacks me in disousssiog this Bill. The hon. gentleman has done exactly as he has been doing during the last live years. So far as myself and my affairs are concerned, he has never hesitated to attack me—sometimes openly, but usually through other unseen channels—and he jumps at conclusions throughout bo long as his conclusions are injurious to me. But I tell him that bis own affairs, the concerns of the firm of John Duthie and Co , Limited, would not stand for six weeks if they were subjected to similar treatmeut and under similar circumstances to that business to which he has referred. Undoubtedly that is so, and he, as a business man, knows it. Is the hon. member prepared to let even seven of his political and personal enemies go into his affairs ? They would not stand under it; and fifty enemies have been going into my affairs for the last two years and eight months, and some of the principal ones have from the start moved heaven and earth to make everything look as black as possible. They h*ve misrepresented, distorted, and exaggerated wherever it has been possible lo do bo, always taking caro that every one else's affairs were carefully ooncealed and protooted. The hon. member (Mr Duthie) has referred to the overdrafts of Mr Ward and the Ward Association, and he has referred to these overdrafts, which were large, in connection with the business they covered, in a manner intended to be depreciatory, and lo show that I was in a very bid positiou at the time. He says not a word about the securities at the buck of these accounts. I say | now here—aud if I were going to dio this j

I moment 1 am prepared to stand by it—at J the time of tho banking legislation in 1894 j not only was I not in an ineolveDt position, but I was in a perfectly solvent position, and so was the Ward Association, and f would have carried through without loss to i anyone if I had been allowed to do so. I i was in this position, although under heavy obligations : that there was not a concern save a coal company that I was connected with that would not pay interest and leavo a large margin on the capital invested. And are there any large concerns in this or any other country that do not carry on their operations with j;he aid of other people's money ? I say there is not, and it must always be so unless you have millionaires in the first instance going into business for the purposes of recreation. There are no large businesses that do not make use of other people's money for the purpose of carrying on commercial operations. And when the hon. member deliberately singles out the worst aspects of the whole position of the Ward Association — the aspects presented by my political foes and business opponents when he does that, and entirely ignores all other matters that fair men would state, I say he is wilfully unfair and shows he is biased, and his opinions must be accepted accordingly. He culls statements made by its enemies and some men who were trying to conceal themselves by attacks on it from the searchlight of public gnza. When the hon. member singles out the worst positions set forth by them of the Association, I ask him to do what every fair man would do—to look at thesurroundiDgs of the whole matter. And what is the position in relation to the Association ? It had a magnificent business : none better in this colony. A mistake was made, not by any means an unusual one—it leant too heavily on its bankers. If it had had its finance from anyone else but its bankers, not only would it have been agoing concern to-day, but it would have been one of the best-paying concerns in this country. The hon. member referred to the overdrafts, but what was the turnover of the institution ? Averaging £BOO,OOO a year. And he referred to that overdraft, apparently, with the intention of trying to make out that the whole accommodation of the institution was excessive. I say that not only was it not excessive for the business it was doing, but if half a dozen commercial men were, apart from politics altogether, to make a full inquiry into its affairs, they would bear

me out in the statement that it ought never to have been put into liquidation at all; and it would never have been put into liquidation had it not been for political purposes add hostile purpoaea aa far aa my personal affairs' were oonoerned. May, more than that s it can be shown that it oould have repaid every pound it owed with reasonable time, but it did not auit the prearranged policy of my opponents to allow thia to be done. And what ia more, one of the moat highly-respected and independent firms of aooountants in thia colony, when I waa struggling against* daily adverse newspaper artioles written against me by politicians and others pulling the strings—and here I may aay that .oertain politicians did play a prominent part in thia particular incident, who had people travelling over the celony to try and atop me—thia firm of accountants, on behalf of a syndicate, who, in order to prevent an offer; «f £62,000 made to the Court for my business, offered £5,000 more than was offered on my behalf. Their offer was made to influence the Court to refuse the offer of £62.000 made on my behalf. The Court, as is known, refused it, and the business was instantly put into liquidation. The same firm of accountants was selected by people who had shown ruthless and prejudiced hostility to me to go into my own personal affairs, and when they had gone into them fully they came down with a report, and to the credit of the firm, be it said—the firm of Brown and Co., of Dunedin—very much to the surprise of those who sent them in the first instance, they had to come with a report showing the position had been improved to the extent of £6,000 within two years. And some people believed that they would be able to put their finger on something—that Ward, out of the many hundreds of thousands of pounds that had passed through his hands, had done something improper. They hoped that it would be found I had appropriated money for myself, and they employed this firm with the knowledge that they had at the outset made an offer which would at least have the effect of influencing the Judge against the one made on my behalf. The principal of the firm was also known as politically opposed to me; and, to the credit of the firm be it said, after a searching investigation into my affairs, that firm said that I had not improperly used any

moneys for myself. And yet the hon. member C3meß hore and talks of nr- i "—'nation with the banking legislation o. ib'jtiu the manner he has done to-night, because I was carrying on a large business. Why, the very firm that tried in the first instance to stop me from getting out of my troubles was the firm that was afterwards selected in order to find out if I had accounted for the moneys passing through my firm's books. They brought down their report, and said that I was clean-handed. Yet here I have heard Mr Duthie, because he happened to enjoy success in his affairs, insinuating that I had prompted this legislation in 1894 for my personal ends. I did not prompt it. I was not responsible for the loss of a pound to the Bank of New Zealand. I had nothing to do with the crisis in that Bank's affairs. I fling the charges back on the hon. member, and I tell him it is quite evident that, if he were in poor circumstance?, apparently he would be prepared to do that which he is ready to accuse others of. But I have never done anything of the sort, and I defy any hon. member to say that I have ever done anything of the sort. (To be continued.) =====