UNLUCKY TAILOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22285, 11 June 1934, Page 14

UNLUCKY TAILOR

VENTURE AS SHIPBREAKER PURCHASE OF ROTOMAHANA. A tailor who bought the steamer Rotomahana for £I7OO, with the object of scrapping the vessel and selling the material, said, when publicly examined in (he Bankruptcy Court in Melbourne recently, that he was compelled to sink the vessel because it was regarded as “a menace to shipping.” The bankrupt was Walter Nicholson Power, of Port Melbourne, who said that he had been in business there for -0 years. “ I now realise that it was a mistake to buy the Rotomahana,” Power said, “ because it changed the whole'of my life,” Power’s estate was sequestrated in September of last year in the petition of Mrs May Stewart. His liabilities were set down as £1872 and his assets as £270. His cash assets totalled 2s 3d. The official receiver reported that about 1928 Power entered into a bond jointly with the petitioning creditor, Mrs Stewart, as surety for Alexander Douglas, now deceased, who was the administrator of the estate of his (Douglas’s) deceased wife. Douglas defaulted in his trust as administrator. SEIZURE OF PROPERTY. Power and Mrs Stewart were then called upon in 1930 to make good tae deficiency. Power was unable to make any payment, but Mrs Stewart, after arranging a compromise, paid in November, 1932, £250 claimed against them as sureties. In February, 1933, Mrs Stewart obtained judgment against Power, and seized and sold two shop properties owned by him. They were both heavily mortgaged, and the equity in each realised only £1 at the sheriff’s sale. Power said that in 1925 he bought the Rotomahana, an obsolete vessel, because he thought that he would make money by scrapping it- Ho employed a man to manage the venture for him, but he subsequently discovered that the man had been acting dishonestly by selling much of the material without nis knowledge and appropriating the money. The Ports and Harbours Department ultimately forced witness to have the vessel sunk, us it was a “ menace to shipping” to leave it anchored in the bay. Witness lost all the money he had put in the venture. He also entered into a partnership for about two years from 1920 as a dealer in scrap materials. In the Rotomahana and other ventures,he lost about £2OOO in all. CAUSES OF BANKRUPTCY. Power said he thought that these losses, with those incurred in his tailoring business, and his having entered into a bond as surety with the petitioning creditor, caused his bankruptcy. Before the stevedores’ strike his business was the most, prosperous of all suburban tailoring businesses. At present it was being rim by his w:f=>. He did not think that the business would ever be as profitable again, unless wages were increased and things improved. “At present,” said Power, “25 per cent, of the people at Port Melbourne are on sustenance.”

Asked by counsel for the petitioning creditor whether he would pay i-is debts if his position improved, Power replied, “Yes, if I was lift £IOOO tomorrow T would pay all my debts.”