QUALITY OF TIMBER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 36, 12 February 1944, Page 5

QUALITY OF TIMBER

MANAGER ON TRIAL ALLEGED FALSE PRETENCES ,P.A.) Christchurch, Feb. 11. The trial of Wilfred Henry Banks, manager of the Papanui Timber Company, on a charge of attempting to obtain £2BO Is 3d from the United States Joint Purchasing Board by false pretences, was continued in the Supreme Court before Mr. Justice Northcroft to-day. It will be resumed on Monday. Cross-examined Banks said the order concerned in the charge was the third from the United States Purchasing Board, and there had been no complaints regarding the two previous orders, which did not have to be furnished in such a rush. He had no word that any of the timber going out was defective. Banks admitted that he wrote the invoices without taking steps to check what was invoiced. The firm seldom had complaints regarding the work of its yardmen, and from past experience he had no hesitation in accepting their grading. Accused said that, he did not protest at the meeting of the North Canterbuy Timber Merchants’ Association after Lysaght had made his report and rejecfeu so much of the timber supplied by his company. "It came as a thunderbolt to me,” said Banks. "I could not offer an explanation, because I knew nothing. I could not believe that such timber could have come from my yard.” He said later that he had not rince inspected the timber. His Honour: It certainly seems very extraordinary to me that you did not go near your timber. You were the most interested person, with more than £2OO worth. Is it not possible that you might have disagreed with Mr. Lysaght’s grading? Might he not have been wrong in some respects?— We all agreed to accept. Mr. Lysaght’s grading in order to settle the matter. His Honour: It is very difficult to understand your attitude. Robert James Appleton, manager of the Addington Timber Company and an officer in the North Canterbury Timber Merchants’ Association, said he knew of the Standards Institute’s grading rules, but they had not been recognised, either in Christchurch or on the West Coast. It was a physical impossibility, under present conditions, tor the manager of a timber company personally to supervise more than *2O per cent, of an order going out. He would have to depend upon his employees. William Hadfield Smith, managingdirector of Brolvnlees, Ltd., a timber firm operating at Wellington and Lower Hutt, also with yards in Christchurch and Dunedin, and controlling a West Coast timber mill, said that nis Christchurch firm, the Western Timber Company, had been included in the allocation, and that an employee named Loader had been charged with false pretences. It was impossible, he continued, to apply the Standards Institute’s gradings regulations in the South Island. John Cyril Southern Bush, manager of C. E. Otley, Ltd., timber merI chants, said tie was charged with a criminal offenc* because of the same allocation. Personally, he said, he had no financial interest, apart, from hit* salary, in the firm. He was satisfied that (tie grading used by Lysaght was not that to which Christchurch and other South Island merchants were accustomed. The case resumes on Monday.