TRUST MONEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19107, 28 February 1924, Page 8

TRUST MONEY.

CHARGE AGAINST LAND AGENT

(Feb United Fress association.! ' WELLINGTON, February 27. A recently adjudged bankrupt, Frederick Joseph Fanning, a’ well-known land agent in Wellington, was called before Mr W. E. Page, .S.M., at the Magistrate’s Court on a charge of fraudulently converting to his own use £IOO trust money, the property of William Whelan. According to Chief-detective Kemp, who conducted the case for the prosecution, the complainant Whelan had entered into an agreement with Fanning’s agent for the purchase of the Waimato Hotel at Manaia. A deposit of £IOO had been paid, with the condition, however, that the money should be returned if Whelan were unsuccessful in arranging for , the finance or in obtaining his license. Complainant failed to obtain a license, but repeated applications to Fanning to return the deposit did not have the desired effect. Civil proceedings were taken in the court at Hawcra, and judgment was obtained against Fanning for the' full amount claimed with costs. No money at all had been .paid under the judgment. After evidence had been heard, accused entered a plea of not guilty, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.

Writing on the position of the Irish Free State, after an existence of one, year, the London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus says: “Mr Cosgrave, whose courage and strength of will arc the prime causes of the better state of affairs, has improved in health since ho resigned from the Ministry of Finance and devoted himself to the Presidency.. He has never been physically strong, and his health a few months ago suggested the necessity for early resignation. The other strong man of the Free State Government is Mr O’Higgins, who was particularly successful in dealing with the hunger strike among the interned rebels. .Five or six thousand rebels were on hunger strike a- few weeks ago. but the firmness of the Government broke the movement without releasing a prisoner. Four thousand men in Tintown Camp took the pledge against food. About 2000 others at New Bridge made a similar vow. Mr O’Higgins retorted by describing the hunger strike as a “woman’s weapon.” Commenting upon the announced determination of the rebels to ‘die for Ireland,’ he asked, ‘Would it bo unkind to remind the rebels that most of them had an opportunity of dying before they surrendered, but did not like the prospect?’ The sarcasm went homo. To-day all the hunger-strikers are. eating heartily. What is more, Irish juries are returning verdicts of ‘guilty’ against iSinn Fein wrongdoers, and judges are punishing criminals. Two capital sentences were passed in a single week, one of the condemned men being a soldier in the National Army. In another case a soldier was flogged for robbery with violence. The Free State authorities were helped in their action against the hunger-strikers by the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly by Dr Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, who refused to allow burial according to the rites of the Church in the case of a hungerstrike ‘suicide.’ ”

“If the public realised our position, things would be different,” declared a speaker at a mass meeting of soldier settlors of the Lyndhurst-Lauriston district. Ho added: “All we ask is a decent living. We want no more than any other British subject would expect. Wo don’t want a bod of roses because we are soldiers, but wo do want what a civilian can get, and that is a decent living.” After a heated discussion, in which the speakers said they believed the Valuer-general and the Revaluations Board severely reduced the recommendations of the local Revaluation Committee, the meeting unanimously resolved to express dissatisfaction with the recent determinations of tho Dominion Revaluation Board, and also want of confidence in the District Revaluation Committee. It was resolved to present a petition to die Government for reconsideration. The contention is that the sections are too poor for wheat, unsuitable for dairying, and only lit for sheep, for which they are emphatically too small. Babbits bred in Holland from English stock arc being used to make chinchilla wraps and coats.