SYDNEY CIVIC INQUIRY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 1 June 1928, Page 5

SYDNEY CIVIC INQUIRY

EX-ALDERMaN’S denial.

WIFE HIDES MONEY. SAID TO BE SISTER’S LEGACY. tUNITED I'RESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECT KH TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.) SYDM'A, May 31. At the Sydney Royal Commission inquiry into civic affairs, replying to counsel lor Mr. Maling, Inspector Macnay said that when he went to New Zealand he had no power to arrest Mr. Maling and bring him back in custody. His instructions were to communicate to the Crown Solicitor any developments arising out of statements made by Mr. Maling and his own inquiries from Mr. Maling about the transaction. Mr. Frank Green, an ex-alderman oi the City Council, gave evidence that his wire had means of her own, but never invested them until 1926, when she purchased • an equity in some property, paying £IOOO for it. She kept tier money at home, and witness did not knew she had it until 1926, when she told him she had £I6OO in notes planted under a flooring board, where it had been for years.

In reply to questions the witness said that when his wife told him about having the money hidden lie expressed no curiosity as to where it came from, and although his wife never mentioned it to him before there was no reason why she should have hidden it. In reply to a further question the witness said that during the absence of Mr. Forbes Mackay, the manager of the' City Council electricity department, nearly £3,000,000 worth of tenders were agreed to. Mr. Green continued that as far as he could recollect the Labour Party in the council was unanimously in favour of accepting the Babcock, and Wilcox tender. He denied that prior to his vote being given in the council he had been approached by 'Mir. Maling, or that he ever put an improper proposal berere him. Witness was quite dennite and positive about this. He never at any time received a suggestion from anybody that money should be paid in respect of the Babcock-Wilcox tender, and had never at any time taken any money from Mr. Maling. He added that Mr. Maling’s statement that he paid witness £7500 was absolutely untrue. Witness also denied that he had any communication with Mr. Maling while the latter was in New Zealand. Questioned regarding his interviews with Mrs. Pittoclc, witness denied that she said Mr. Maling had told her that he had handed the money to witness, and Mrs. Pittock did not mention that a sum of money had come through Albert. Witness did not make any inquiry as to how Albert had come into 'the business.

Mr. Green added that he had had suspicions that Mr. Maling was crooked in the Babcock-Wilcox contract, but he had nothing to base that opinion on. Mrs. Green, wife of the former witness, gave evidence that the £ISOO she bad secreted had been given her by her dead .sister as a kind of trust fund for the latter’s two children, whom she was looking after. The reason she had kept the matter secret was that her sister had asked her to say nothing about it. The money was given her in 1919, and her husband was astounded when she told him in 1926 that she bad the money. She told her husband she had the money after she had invested it in property. Witness was searcliingly crossexamined by Mr. Shand as to why she did not put the money in a bank instead of hiding it under the flooring. She said she never thought of putting it in a bank.

In reply to a further question by Mr. Shand, she said she might leave her sister’s two children what was left of the '£lsoo when slie was dead. She had not mentioned the money to her sister’s children, one of whom was now grown up, because she thought her sister did not want them to know about it.