B.—l [Pt. ll].

10

Public Works Department. J. W. Brownloe, clork in the Public Works Department, formerly located at Whangarei but more recently in the Accountants' Branch, Wellington, was arrested and charged with theft of £27 6s. lid., moneys belonging to the New Zealand Government. He had misappropriated the amount and forged a receipt therefor. At the Supreme Court he was admitted to two years' probation. Restitution was made. Dismissed from the Service. Repatriation Department. G. Telford, temporary clerk in the District Repatriation Office, Wellington, failed to account for moneys totalling £6 10s., and, by falsification of books, stole £200, the property of the Repatriation Department. The matter was placed in the hands of the police with a view to his arrest. It was supposed that he had gone to Australia, but he has not yet been traced. F. V. N. Coull, an officer formerly employed in the Wellington District Repatriation Office, who was charged on the 20th June, 1923, with forging an application for a furniture loan of £50, and with conspiring to defraud the Government in connection with three other furniture loans of £50 each, and who pleaded not guilty, appeared twice before the Supreme Court in Wellington. Each time the jury disagreed, and, as at a third trial at Christchurch there was also disagreement, a nolle prosequi was entered, and Coull was discharged. Thomas Richard Southall, Local Secretary to the Mastorton Repatriation Committee, was charged with theft of moneys totalling £483 7s. 6d., the property of the New Zealand Government. The thefts were committed by means of a forged application for a furniture loan and a forged receipt to a Treasury voucher. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced in the Supreme Court to twelve months' reformative treatment. A further shortage of £56 7s. 6d. was discovered, representing the value of furniture seized under a bill of sale held by the Repatriation Department, which he took to his own home. Restitution was made to tho extent of £220 125., leaving £319 3s. to be written off by authority of Parliament. Dismissed from the Service. State Fire Insurance Department. F. A. F. Bone, State Fire Insurance Agent, Kawakawa, disappeared from the district in June, 1923, and it was ascertained that he had failed to account for £9 4s. belonging to the New Zealand Government State Fire Insurance Office. His whereabouts was later discovered, and ho appeared in the Magistrate's Court in March, 1924, on various charges of theft brought by his creditors, and received throe years' reformative detention. The loss sustained by the Department will require to be written off by parliamentary authority. T. H. Jones, the State Fire Insurance Agent at Dannevirke, was arrested for embezzlement of various sums amounting to £300, tho property of private persons. Investigation disclosed that he had also embezzled £230, representing moneys belonging to tho New Zealand Government State Fire Office. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the Waikeria Reformatory. The actual loss, which amounts to £170 Is. Bd., will require to be written off by parliamentary authority. Tourist and Health Resorts Department. G. J. O'Brien, Acting Tourist Agent, Christchurch, was reported by the General Manager to be £200 short in his accounts. Necessary investigations by the Audit Inspector ensued, which revealed a deficiency of £201 ss. 4d. In the Supreme Court he was sentenced to detention for reformative purposes for a period not exceeding three years. The amount will require to be made good by parliamentary appropriation. Dismissed from the Service. Losses and other Irregularities. Education Department. An inspection in June, 1923, of the office of the Boarding-out Officer, Nelson, by an officer of the Education Department revealed cortain irregularities in regard to accounting, and a cash shortage of £3 10s. 9d. The officer responsible, who had since loft the Service, was called upon to pay this amount, 12s. 6d. being paid to Public Account, and £2 18s. 3d. to the credit of the boarded-out girl to whom it belonged. New Zealand Government Railways. New Lynn Station was broken into on the 30th September, 1923, and a sum of £10 16s. 9d. stolen. The police took the matter in hand, but were unable to trace the offender. It will be necessary to place an amount on the estimates to make good the loss. Hawera Relief Funds. The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the Poor of Great Britain, Ireland, and Belgium Relief Fund, Hawera, was reported to have kept his books in such a manner as to require investigation by the Audit Office under section 14 of the War Funds Amendment Act, 1918. An audit followed, which showed shortages of £55 55., that other trust-moneys had been banked in the same account as the above relief-fund moneys, and that other irregularities had been in practice. There was, however, a sum of £21 9s. 6d. in excess of what was required to balance the fund after allowing for tho alleged shortage of £55 ss. ; and, as the police considered that the evidence was not sufficiently conclusive to warrant criminal proceedings against the secretary, no prosecution resulted.