CASTAWAY'S PLAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23036, 13 May 1938, Page 12

CASTAWAY'S PLAN

DISPOSAL OF FORTUNE NATIONAL DEBT REDUCTION [from a special correspondent] LONDON, April 23 Cast ashore at Bexhill, Sussex, when a baby, from an unknown foreign ship wrecked in a storm, a man who later made and lost fortunes in Australia and South Africa now wants to give his wealth, estimated at more than £250,000, to reduce the national debt. "I was thrown up on the shores of Britain without a penny," he told Treasury officials whom he consulted on the subject. 'When I die I want to be cremated and returned to the sea where the coastguards rescued tne. "And I want to return as penniless as when I was cast up That is why I wish anything I leave to be used to reduce the national debt. 1 think that in my case it is the only decent thing to do." The man is Mr. Adrian Rogers, aged 75, nicknamed "Old Nep" or Neptune Rogers, by his friends. He was adopted by a lawyer of Hastings—a Mr. Rogers —and when he grew up he shipped as a lad to South America. There he met Colonel North, the "Nitrate King," and at 30 had amassed more than £20,000 by buying and selling nitrate concessions.

Mr. Rogers was forced to llee to Australia when the Chile revolution broke out and lost half his money in the Australian banks smash in 1891. Then, in South Africa, he met Rutherford Harris and Dr. Jamieson, friends of Cecil Rhodes. He became rich during the Kaffir boom of 1895 and onward, only to lose most of his fortune in the South African war slump. Back in England, tlie rubber boom of 1908 brought him another fortune.