SAMOAN FIRM CHARGED

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1931, Page 5

SAMOAN FIRM CHARGED

HANDLING OF NATIVE MONEY MAU OWES NELSON £20,000 By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Rec. 8.5 p.m. Apia, Jan. 27. The charges against O. F. Nelson and Co. stands part-heard pending the evidence of O. F. Nelson being taken on commission at Auckland. To-day evidence was given by Kruse, a director of the company, and Moors, secretary of the company, and Chief Faumaina.

The Samoan chief stated that he thought the amount owed Nelson and Co. by the Mau was £20,000, being the cost of a trip to Geneva, solicitors’ costs in New Zealand and Samoa, and other costs. The defence claims that the money in question has been paid for a legal purpose —paying debts due to Nelson personally, and that what the company was doing was not aiding and abetting a seditious organisation.

Before Chief Judge Luxford in the High Court on Monday Nelson and Company, Ltd., was charged under the Maintenance of Authority Native Affairs Ordinance of 1928 with being in possession of £238 paid into the office on behalf of the Samoa men’s committee, the monies relating to a native organisation not being of a religious or charitable nature approved by the Administrator. The company was also charged with participating in the activities and receiving monies on behalf of the Mau and issuing receipts contrary to Section 3 of the Seditious Organisations Ordinance of 1930.