7

I.—2a.

to Christchurch, and after giving evidence, and that again shows the need for cross-examina-tion and how little value is to be placed on the last inquiry. Then, sir, if Mr. Heywood was under cross-examination before a judicial inquiry he would naturally be asked the question why he did not give the certificate himself. He is asked the question by the Auditor-General, "Why was the certificate not given by you?" and he said, " I understand there was urgency in preparing the paper for presentation to the House, and I did not get back to my office in time to give the certificate," and yet the peculiar thing about it is this, that there was such urgency in getting that certificate that Mr. Heywood could not give it himself, and yet it took a number of days and a number of clerks to ascertain whether such payment was made or not, and once they gave that certificate they were virtually implicated. It was to their interests to keep the matter covered up as long as possible, which also shows the need for cross-examination. Then he talks of the books and records, the number of records and the number of entries, but they would not let me see any one of them. Then we come to Mr. Innes's evidence, the Audit officer, and he has referred in detail to a number of searches made. He has referred to twelve different searches, and he also talks about having my assistance at certain searches. lam quite certain from the manner in which Mr. Innes conducted the searches with me that he had no opportunity of telling whether the vouchers that we saw were genuine or not, The examination was only cursory, and it did not lost any time, and I am quite satisfied that from Mr. Innes's examination he could not tell, and, in fact, Mr. Innes went about the search in a manner which showed that he considered he was looking for a will-o'-the-wisp, and also that we had to some extent cast a slur on his Department; which also goes to show that Mr. Innes should not have been in a position to assist the judge at such an inquiry, because he ought really to have been a witness at such inquiry. The judge should have been a independent person, and not a departmental officer, so that he could sift Mr. Innes's evidence with regard to those many searches. The matter as set out in detail here looks very convincing, but if we had a judicial inquiry we would prove there is nothing in it. I found I had so little chance of getting anything from Mr. Innes's search that I found it was necessary for me to tell him the strength of our case. After the first two days it was getting serious; we could not find the voucher that we had seen, and I told Mr. Innes, and laid the whole case before him as from the point of view of we four men. I pointed out how serious it was for us; we had seen a certain thing, and that it would prove his books were defective if such did not exist, and then I gave him the whole facts of the case from our point of view, and all I could get out of Mr. Innes was that "1 was getting a pretty good run for my money," which was what I would not have expected if I had gone before a judicial inquiry. The whole thing went to show that the officers conducting the search choose to consider themselves or their Department under a slur, and I did not get the opportunity of proving my case that I would have had before a judicial inquiry with proper cross-examination. I would like to point out, sir, that we had to submit to the last inquiry—it was not the inquiry we sought. That, petition two days after the inquiry was set up goes to s>how that we knew we should have very little chance of obtaining what we wanted from that inquiry, and we asked at once that it should be a judicial inquiry with proper crossexamination, immediately we knew the nature of the tribunal. We had to submit to that because Mr. Fisher held our affidavits; we had to go forward, but it was not the inquiry that should have been granted to us. Then Mr. Warburton absolutely refused to consider the assumption of fraud whatever. He actually told me that he did not consider in his opinion anybody would be so depraved as to tamper with a voucher, and he would not listen to any thought or suggestion of a substituted voucher, which would still allow his books to appear accurate, and yet the whole case from our point of view would break down. A judicial inquiry would have ascertained that fact. Then, sir, there has been such great trouble to try and prove similarity between two vouchers. The whole case apparently from the other side seems to be based on the fact that we could make a mistake in the voucher, and that we made a mistake as to the " Sneddon " voucher on account .of the similarity in the sounding of the name, and later on the Premier made a statement that we were surprised to find another Sneddon voucher. If we were only before a judicial inquiry we would knock the idea of a possible mistake out once and for all, because we know the Anderson or Sneddon vouchers—we have been handling them for years. There is no firm in Christchurch that receives more payments than Anderson's; we know Sneddon personally; we know his signature, and we have known it for some years. Why should Larcombe, a man who has been dealing with these vouchers, bring me a voucher which he has been handling every day for years and talk about it being something unusual? The possibility of mistake is absolutely beyond conception. A man like Larcombe could not make such a mistake —he has handled these vouchers for years. Well, what has become of it? I say the inquiry we have had never gave us the opportunity to prove whether the voucher was there or not. I have already put in evidence the fact that those two vouchers are a different colour —one was white and the other was blue. The " Seddon " voucher was made out on blue paper, and the so-called " Sneddon " voucher or Anderson voucher was made out on white paper; one bore the name of " Seddon " three times, and the other bore the name of " Sneddon " once, and two of the men have not sworn to the signature of Seddon at all —they have only sworn to the fact that the voucher was made out at the top in the name of " R. J. S. Seddon " ; there are the names, the different particulars in the two vouchers —one was a particular service for reorganization of Defence Stores at Wellington, and the other was for certain bars of steel and iron, and so forth. With reference to the suggestion of the voucher having been tampered with, or the theory of a substituted voucher, Mr. Warburton, as I say, would not listen to it. He wanted me to give some theory for the disappearance of the voucher we saw, and the only theory I could give was that a voucher for the same amount but different particulars of service and different name of payee had been substituted. I suggested that to him as a possible solution of the non-appearance of the voucher. I suggest it again : I say at the last inquiry it would be a very easy thing—the easiest thing in the world—for a voucher to have been substituted, and then the whole case from our point of view would have broken down, because the other side knew perfectly well that I was to be given no opportunity