MISSING TRUSTEE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8362, 28 July 1920, Page 4

MISSING TRUSTEE.

STATEMENT BY POSTMASTERGENERAL.

The Hon. J. G. Coates, PostmasterGeneral, gave the House of Representatives the details with regard to the payment by the Public Trust, through the Post Office, of an open cheque for £3445, on behalf of the O’Connor Trust, over the’ counter to a Westport trustee, with the result that, as Mr H. E. Holland (Buller), another trustee, had complained earlier in the session, both the Westport trustee and £IOOO of the trust funds were missing.

The inference, said the Minister, was that the postal authorities had not taken due care in the matter. He explained that Mr Leaver, the man in question, had presented to the postmaster, Westport, a special authority for the payment to him of £3445. The authority was signed by Mr H. E. Holland and by His Grace Archbishop Redwood (two of the trustees) and payment had been made by a bearer cheque issued, not by the Public Trust Office, but by the Westport postmaster on the local branch of the Bank of New Zealand. An order cheque would have given no special protection to the two other trustees, said Mr Coates, as Mr Leaver would only have had to endorse it and it would have been paid. On other occasions the trustees had given authorities for persons to receive moneys on behalf of the Trust.

Mr 11. E. Holland said that he had not made any charge whatever against any officer of the Public Trust Office or the Postal Department. His complaint was against the system which made it possible to pay over huge sums of trust money due from the Public Trust Department to a public institution by means of an open cheque, w'hen the ordinary precaution of making it an order cheque or a crossed cheque would be a safeguard to some extent. He urged that in future an order cheque or a crossed cheque should be used.