WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7662, 22 June 1896, Page 3

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

A GOVERNMENT ORGAN ON THE

WARD, BUSINESS.

•v\ Tatrs the Lyttelton Times (Ministerial) : ; ,;;" Fraud," "falsification of balance-sheet," and "reckleßß disregard of ordinary business < principles," though strong and scathiug terms ; : ''to employ, do no more than echo the judgment formed by the community when the startling revelations were made, nearly two weeks ago, of the discreditable devices and dishonest tricks by which it was sought to cover up the desperate condition of the Ward Association. The decision of. Mr Justice Williams is emphatically a righteous one. It would have been an intolerable scandal had it been held that a public company's officials might do things which would involve any business man in criminal proceedings, and that nevertheless the Court would give Us sanction to a proposal to hush up the circumstances and allow the Company to start . afresh on a career possibly more nefarious than before. In the commercial aspect, the doings of the Ward Association oast a dark blot upon the commercial morality .of the colony/ ... No matter how strongly sympathetic may be one's view of the case of a man or company struggling in the meshes of commercial calamity, it is impossible to excuse, must less to justify, the devious methods that marked the finance of the Ward Association duriDg the last year ot its existence.. The. odium of these transactions does not all rest upon Mr Ward, yet, as managing director and principal shareholder in the concern, Mr Ward must be held responsible for the misdeeds of his co-directors and subordinates. He either was or was not aware of the rotten condition of affairs and the fraud and falsification that were being perpetrated. If we accept his assurance that he was to a large extent ignorant of what was going on, he must still remain under the imputation of utter incompetence or of gross and inexcusable carelessness with regard to the affairs of the large commercial concern of which he was the founder. Even that charitable view of the case will hardly - be accepted by the moßt lenient of Mr . Ward's friends, especially as these had mostly formed a high opinion of his business capacity. ... Mr Ward's resignation of his seat in the House of Representatives, as well as of his place in the Ministry, we considered to be inevitable from the moment the disclosure of his insolvency was made. A favorable decision by the Court would not ' have ■ altered our opinion in the slightest degree. "An empty sack cannot stand upright," and in that piece of homely proverbial wisdom we have the whole ration d'itre of prompt resignation of all representative and administrative offices held by a man whose affairß are beyond his own control.*' ' lirthe' interests of the colony, of the Liberal cause, and of Mr Ward himself, that step should have been taken much earlier. On Mr Ward's own admission before the Court, •it onght to have been taken at latest in August last, when he muat have realised the hopelessly involved condition of his own and his Association's affairs. Had the facts now • revealed been known to us then, we should h&ve'been among the foremost to insist that Mr Ward should retire from the Ministry, and free himself absolutely from all share in ' promoting the banking legislation that was ' pasßed after that date. Had he resigned - office then,' the crieia in his commercial affairs 'might have been hastened, but his political reputation would have been saved from all breath of suspicion, and the cause with which he has been associated would have suffered no. discredit. . . . Higher than all considerations of .Ministerial or . party advantage is the question of how the untoward ending of Mr Ward's Association viil affect the credit and good name of the colony in London. THE OATS EPISODE. What strikes us (Christchurch Press) particularly about the matter is the easy-going way, in which this important business was concluded. The advance against £30,000 "" worth of oats, representing at the then . ruling prices some 120,000 sacks, or over 10,000 tons, would have been one of the largest transactions of the kind ever recorded in the colony. The mere matter of securing the freight Home would have taken weeks — aye, months— to arrange under ordinary circumstances. Needless to say, such a quantity of grain, if in store, could not have : been hidden away in a corner where it would be lifcely to , be overlooked. Yet the Bank < officials seem to have accepted, without the

slightest question, Mr fisher's statement that the Ward Association held the oats,

and had arranged to ship them to Eng- - land. They bad no bill of lading, made no attempt to send forward the draft, and, in fact did nothing with it until just before the amalgamation with tho Bask of New Zealand, when it was cancelled and recharged to the Ward Association. Accompanying the bogus draft were bogus store warrants, and those the Bank seem to have accepted with placid contentment. When they cancelled the draft, to the beat of Mr Vigere'B recollection, they handed back the bogus warrants by which it was accompanied. Of all the good-natured things done by the Bank in connection with the Ward Association, this seems to be the very acme of Christian charity and forgiveness. If the evidence of Mr Vigers is true, the action of Mr Fisher amounted to the grossest fraud. She plain duty of the Bank in such a case, instead of handing back the warrants was to huve impounded those documents and sent for tho police. . . (The whole affair is such an extraordinary departure from the rules of ordinary banking, that in itself it justifies the further - enqniry which Mr Justice Williams deems .necessary in the interests of commercial

morality. It is of especial importance to

the public, because the banking official who was then general manager of the Colonial . ' Bank, and responsible for the transaction, is now general manager of the Bank of New Zealand — an institution which this colony ,; has. taken upon itself to guarantee. Is it ■ usual in banking circles to give credit for so ;-. large an amount as £30,000 with no more substantial security than was given in this "-. particular case 1 Does Mr Mackenzie intend '' ; .' to act on the same principle in his present position as general manager of the Bank o.f New Zealand ? That is a question which, . - in the interests of the public, should be ; '"'■ answered at once, A further question of - great importance will then remain to be : .' faced. It is whether a banking official who - - in his past career sanctioned such a peculiar : ' transaction as that) which wo have described ■'- ought in any case to be entrusted with the ' '..'' control of an institution in which the State ' ' has now so large an interest as it has in the ■ r { .'--Bank of Now Zealand.

r'f- ■-''■ ' A despatch to the New York Sun slates ; th#t Baron Hirsoh'a will contained instruc- \ '"'Jiioijß^o his executors to destroy the Prince v \of Wales' 1.0.U.'5, which it is believed