A CONVICT'S PITIFULSTORY

Evening Star, Issue 15480, 30 April 1914, Page 1

A CONVICT'S PITIFULSTORY

At ihe London Sessions on March 11 Frederick Julian Maxwell (61), engineer, pleaded guilty, before Mr Robert Wallace, K.C., to having obtained from various persons £l4, £1 10s, and £2 by false pretences. He also admitted receiving two cheques, stolen in 1912, and having converted to his own use 53 paintings, the property of Henry Edward Sharpe, of Albion Grove, Barnsbury. Detective-sergeant Warner said that the prisoner had twice been employed by the London County Council in the Public Control Department. In 1902 and in 1910 he was sentenced to imprisonment for cheque frauds. He was a married man, and deserted his wife in 1902. At the time of his arrest he was living with a girl of 18, whom he had met in Hyde Park.

The prisoner made a long statement explanatory of his past. He said he was an educated man, speaking several languages, and his obsession seemed to be cheques. As a boy of 16, when living at Bath, there was a medallion lost, and it was brought home to him. The value of the article was 3s 6d, and he was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. After three months in a den which even Dante couM not have described, he was sent to Brixton, where he was foreman of the basketniakers. Whatever prison he had been in he bad always been a foreman of some sort. He had been commended at the Central Criminal Court for assisting an officer who was attacked by a prisoner, and his sentence was remitted. After leaving the prison he went away in the Army, and visited several places abroad. Ho pleaded with the Judge not to let the winter of his life be lost to him. Mr Wallace said he had no doubt that the life which the prisoner had led was due to that punishment on a boy of 16, but be had no alternative but to sentence him to 21 months' imprisonment.

j When Mr Holman was in New Zealari?T. for a brief summer holiMr Holman day it may be remainthe' bered that ho was enCaucus. paged in a lively interchange of cablegrams-with the Political Labor League Conference," ■wham he left in session in Sydney as soon as his colleagues had been decidad for him after the Caucus method of Cabinet making. Since then he has had further differences with the Parliamentary Caucus —his own followers in Parliament. The last one was over the appointment of Legislative Councillors, and in -wellinformed political circles this dispute is regarded as likely to settle the supremacy one way or another—whether Cabinet 01 j Caucus shall rule. The abolition of the I Legislative Council (and of the State Governor also) is one of Labor's aims in New South Wales. But the Legislative Council fail to see it, and, like oar own Upper House, deal cunningly or cruelly with Bills designed for their own good. So the Upper House is to be "swamped." At the P.L.L. Conference it was decided.that the Council should be abolished; that each nominee to the Government for ap- | pointment should sign the Labor pledge ; | and that the names of nominees ;be submitted by the Government to | the P.L.L. executive for endorsement. At this Conference it was actually proposed that Labor organisers should be appointed to the Upper House, so that they could use their free railway passes in. working for the cause. But this proposal was defeated. Now the Parliamentary Caucus demands the right practically to nominate appointees to the j Upper House. Mr Holman denies that right most emphatically, as it belongs exclusively to Cabinet. In an interview in I Sydney last week he said : Once the principle of Caucus interference with administration is admitted it could, of course, be applied to every branch of administration. The Ministry of the day might be directed by Caucus vote to promote one Civil servant or discharge another. It might be directed to initiate a prosecution in one case or find a nolle prosequi in another. It might be directed to favor one firm of contractors and ignore another. These things are clearly entirely outside the scope of party determination; these things are clearly problems of adminis- 1 tration, and unless the Government have a free hand to carry them out according to their own views they are not in a position to govern the country at all. and must resign. From discussions that this declaration of independence has given rise to, it appears that Mr Holman is only being kept in power and his offences condoned because he is at present useful to the party. The real dominant spirits in Labor in New South Wales are Mr E. D. Meagher, Speaker of the Assembly and president of the P.L.L. Conference, and Mr J. (.'. Watson, predecessor of Mr Fisher in Federal politics. According to the ' Hobart Mercury ' : They are working together to perfect the machine and to give it complete authority over all members. Just at present Mr Meagher is, by consent, put * forward as the Leader, while Mr Watson backs him up. There are no more astute and capable men in the Australian political world to-day than these two, and they have a strong backin.2. It is believed that eventually they will quarrel when each tries to get control of the machine, but just now they a>-e working together. The Premier has associated with him Mr Griffith, Mr Car-michae-I, and Mr Cann, all men of ability, and who have made politics serve them well. The common rumor is that, if they are beaten in the fight for supremacy, these four, with some of their following, will become prominent members of a recognised Liberal party, such as Mr Beeby aimed at with such ill-success. - ■ The same paper adduces something which, if true, explains the reason for believing that the tussle between the tur sections of Labor will be decided ovo: this question of Upper House appointments. The claim of the Caucus Mr Holm ar. has promptly repudiated in quite unmis takable language. Indeed, ne imputec deliberate corruption, and, hinting thai some of the members had accepted money from would-be Legislative Coun , cillors, said that they had taken i( under false pretences. The public «:' New South Wales know who in particular is aimed at in this statement, and it is not necessary to mention

names. However, here is the first shot fired in the great battle, and we may expect developments before long.