JABEZ BALFOUR AND HIS SENTENCE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIII, 28 March 1896, Page 341

JABEZ BALFOUR AND HIS SENTENCE.

Ms Wilson, in the fHVtstors" /ieeietr, is not satisfied with the result of the Balfour trials. He thinks that Balfour has got too much and the others too little ; but it is Mr Wilson's habit never to be contented no matter what happens. He says:— * A popular craving for revenge upon Balfour has been gratified ; and in gloating over this the public will forget altogether that Balfour’s crimes were as common almost as company balance sheets ; that he and his associates have their counterparts all over the country ; that frauds of a si nilar nature are as common in certain regions of finance as hemlock in hedges The more we think over this aspect of these sentences, the more we feel that something like a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Three classes of individuals required a sharp lesson, a rousing warning. First, there is the company shareholder. He requires to have beaten into his head, as with a club, the all-important fact that the dominant tendency of company finance in our day is to steal capital, on one pietenceor another, in order to pay dividends.’ The second class which required punishing was the directors. But there is a third class about which he is still more exercised, and these are the accountants. He grieves over Mr Theobald's sentence as inadequate :— ‘ What we desire to see is a code of laws framed by the governing bodies of the various accountant societies, by which the hands and backbones of their memberswill be strengthened to resist the fraudulent intentions of Boards of directors, — always anxious to make things smooth with the shareholders, even when not actively criminal in purpose. The shareholding public, we know by sad experience, never tries to help itself till too late. It is for an honourable body of public auditors to protect the ignorant and the weak by refusing to tell lies in balancesheets, or anywhere else ; and if some good result in this direction is not accomplished by the Liberator trials, they might just as well not have taken place. The mere satisfaction of the passion for revenge does no good to anybody.’