ALLEGED CONSPIRACY AND FEAUD IN MELBOUBNE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8790, 28 May 1890, Page 3

ALLEGED CONSPIRACY AND FRAUD IN MELBOURNE.

CHARGES AGAINST A VICTORIAN MINISTER. It has been persistently rumored in Melbourne for several weeks that Mr J. G Templeton, who was appointed Official Liquidator to the Premier Permanent Building, Land, and Investment Association when that Society suspended payment intended to swear a criminal information againt Mr Jas. Mirams, the former Secretary of the Association, and each and every member of the Board of Directors. These rumors were as persistontly denied, but on May 12 criminal summones were served on Mr John Nimmo (M.L.A.), Mr J. L. Dow (Minister of Lands), Mr John E. Gourlay, Mr John Stewart, Mr Thomas Fergusson, and Mr James Mirams, charging them with unlawfully conspiring, contriving, and confederating to defraud the shareholders of the Association. A second summons charges them with conspiring with Philip Corkhill, builder, of Toorak, John Murphy and Robert Murphy, who are also included in the information, to defraud the shareholders by granting and obtaining an advance in excess of the value of the land which was held as security. The first charge against the defendants is that they conspired to defraud the shareholders by allotting amongst themselves the whole of a special issue of shares on which they had fixed a premium of £1, and the second of also conspiring to defraud the shareholders by advancing loans upon the security of land which really belonged to Gourlay, and which had been passed from hand to hand by pretended sales to give it a vastly inflated value. The hands through which these pretended passings took place are Corkhill and the two Murphys, who are builders. It was in regard to this land that Colonel Temple • ton made some very surprising statements iv his report at the end of last year to the shareholders. He showed that the Association parted with over £40,000, represented as part of a loan on mortgage, but there was no mortgage, nor had the reputed borrower at that time any legal title to the land proposed to be given as security. A noticeable circumstance in connection with this loan, whose ultimate amount was £106,500, was that the plans and specifications of tho buildings could not be found. Altogether £82,423 had been advanced on this property, and not one of the buildings had been finished. All sorts of rumors are current aa to the nature of the discoveries which Cobnel Templeton has made during his investigation of the books. It is alleged that depositors have come with receipts for money paid to the Society, and no record of any such money having been received can be found in tho books. Numerous other irregularities are whispered about, but a full disclosure will not be made till the cases come on for hearing at the City Court.