“FRAUDULENT BUBBLE”

Taranaki Daily News, 23 November 1929, Page 8

“FRAUDULENT BUBBLE”

Q.D. & H.P. MERE DECEPTION r PUNISHMENT OF THE SECRETARY STRONG COMMENT BY JUDGE. By Telegraph.—Press Association; Invercargill, Nov. 22. Mr. Justice Kennedy sentenced David Neilson Johnston, New Zealand representative of Quarterly Dividends and National House Purchase, to three months’ hard labour concurrently on each of six charges of obtaining money under false pretences. Addressing the prisoner, His Honour said: “You have been representative for two companies, whose tricky and deceptive deposit system was a mere fraudulent bubble. Although your representations may have seemed to the ordinary person a mere deception, these representations did in fact deceive persons with little commercial experience and also persons with a commercial training, who did not stop to think.' You are a man .of intelligence and education, and yow good character and conduct show that you are in your present position through the initial pernicious influence of a man at present beyond the jurisdiction of this court, “You had, however, had ample warnings from individuals who had experience of the system, and you were heedless of the warnings in leading articles in responsible newspapers. You will be Sentenced, however, merely for those offences upon which you haye been guilty and will not have to bear vicarious punishment for those responsible for the promotion of the companies.”