DISMISSED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16543, 29 September 1921, Page 8

DISMISSED.

STATE COAL MANAGER AND CHIEF CLERK. RESULT OF INQUIRY. [From Our Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, September 29. It is understood that as a consequence of recent defalcations in the of&oe of the State Coal Department at Christchurch, in connection with which a jun or clerk was convicted of the theft of a large sum, an inquiry into the office system has resulted in the dismissal of the manager of the State Coal depot at Christchurch, the senior clerk, tho auditor responsible for the oversight of the particular accounts, and an accountant at the head office. The Christchurch officers dismissed arc : Mr C. E. Naider, manager of the office. Mr Griff. Rich, chief clerk. Tho other officers are stationed in Wellington. The right of appeal belongs to all the dismissed officers within thirty days* from to-day.

.SCOPE OF INQUIRY. (Pr-’n Pt»vc.s Association.) WELLINGTON, September 29

I The State Coal depot inquiry was I conducted by Mr Versehaffelt into tho ! system on which business was conducted !in the Christchurch depot, and the | means taken to prevent defalcations. MR NALDER MAY APPEAL. PUNISHMENT CONSIDERED DRASTIC AND UNJUST. “ I am considering the matter of appeal," Mr Naider said, when he was seen by a reporter this afternoon, and was informed that the message had come from Wellington. "The Public Service Commissioner in these m altera may take on© of several courses. He may reduce an officer to a lower grade, reduce his salary, fine him, deprive him of his annual leave of absence, dismiss him, or require him to resign. Of all these penalties he has selected for us the most drastic. The punishment could not have been worse if I had been implicated. As far as the evidence to which we have access is concerned, there is nothing whatever to prove the slightest carelessness or negligence. It has to lie remembered, also, that all the money was recovered—not a single penny was lost to the Government—and that the defalcations were discovered by officers in the Christchurch office, not by officers of the Audit Department. It looks to me at present, in view of the drastic step taken, that retrenchment is the order of the day, and that justice, consequently, has gone by tho board." MR RICH TO APPEAL. Rich endorsed Mr Naider's remarks in regard to the injustice of the punishment, arid said that ho certainly would appeal. "I am astounded at the announcement," he said. MANY YEARS IN THE SERVICE. Both Mr Naider and Mr Rich have been nearly fifteen years in the public service, in both cases in the State Coal Department. Mr Naider began in Wanganui, and stayed there for twelve years, part of the time in charge of the office. Ho has been in the Cliristch iirc-li office for three years. Mr Rich began his career in Christchurch, and has been here all the time, except for sixteen months he spent at Kumar a, on the West Coast. f LARCE SUM STOLEN. BUTLER GETS TWO YEARS GAOL. By tampering with the cash register, Patrick .John Butler, a young man, twenty years of age, employed as counter clerk at the Christchurch State Coal. Office, stole £2033 4s lid. The most extraordinary part of the theft was that- Butler paid all the money into his account at the Post Office Savings Bank. Laxity on the part of his senior officers was alleged, and an inquiry Wfcs set on foot. Butler was sentenced on August 26 to two years’ reformative treatment. Mr M. J. Gresson, who appeared for the prisoner, said that he would be twenty-one years of age in October. His parents were respectable, and up to the present time he had borne the highest character. The offence was committed with an extraordinary motive. The prisoner was brought up in the country. When he left school at sixteen years of age his lather—unwisely, but with the best intentions—urged him to find employment in the town, and he entered the Christchurch office of the State Coal Department. He stayed there for four years. All that time he was eating his heart out to get back to the country. He asked his father to let him go back, but his father thought that it was wiser that he should stay in Christchurch. He bad no vices. He neither drank nor I gambled. As a junior he was placed in charge of a. receiving machine in the office. It recorded the half-yearly totals along a line on the top of „the machine. He prw the auditor turn the recorder back to zero. The machine was supposed to be rogue-proof, and could not be turned back to a smaller sum, but could be turned back tc zero. The temptation then assailed him. He thought, "Now’s my chance to get back into the country." He took a large sum, but the extraordinary part of it was that he spent not a single penny. He paid the whole into the Post Office Savings Bank. All had been returned. The only motive was to get back to the country. He received a salary of only £l2O a year, and £60,000 a year passed through his bands. He had been trusted on account of his character, and ho fell. And, having entered upon tho downward course, it was impossible for him to pay any of the money back without inevitable discovery. Counsel asked that the prisoner should be admitted to probation or should bo sentenced to reformative treatment, but there was a grave risk of reformative treatment having a bad effect on him, not ft good effect.

Mr W. M. Hamilton, for the Crown in the absence of Mr A. T. Donnelly (Crown Prosecutor), said that the report of the Under-Secretary for Mines bore out what Mr Gresson had said in regard to the prisoner's previous character.

His Honor said that he w<*uld consider what the head of the Department had said, but the offence was a very grave one, and the prisoner could not be admitted to probation. Frauds in the public service were becoming too frequent. The onlv wav of stoonin * them was to punish offenders when the crimes were exposed. He would be sentenced to two years’ reformative trent-menf :n the Invercargill institu-