7

a.— s

• The other case to which I have referred shows strongly the carelessness with which Mr. Young transacted his business, and the want of principle with which he administered the trust committed to him. In examining the bank pass-book of Mr. Young's official account, I observed that, on the 30th of June, 1879, a cheque for £45 15s. had been paid at the bank, but no entry of any corresponding payment was made in the cash-book. On inquiring of Mr. Young as to the meaning of this transaction, he informed me that, in proceeding to close his account at the end of the financial year, he discovered that his balance at the bank was £45 15s. in excess of the balance as shown in his cash--book. On my inquiring what steps he took on making this discovery, he informed me that he consulted the teller of the Bank as to the course he should adopt, and that officer advised him to withdraw the money. (I may remark that the gentleman referred to was not in Tauranga at the time of my visit.) Mr. Young informed me that he had declined to adopt the suggestion so made ; but, on requesting him to inform me what it was he did, he stated that he did withdraw the money (by means of the cheque above referred to) ; and, in answer to my inquiry as to how he had disposed of it, he stated that he placed it in an envelope, and then in a box in the office until he should find out to whom it belonged ; that he ultimately gave £10 of it, in two sums of £5 each, to Mr. Warbrick, to enable him to meet some urgent private obligations ; and that he had disposed of the remainder in sundry disbursements on account of the Government service. In reply to the question whether he had charged the Government with the disbursements referred to, he said he had not. I inquired further whether he ever took any steps to ascertain how the discrepancy arose, and thereupon to adjust it; and he replied that he had not. The cause of the discrepancy was, however, not far to seek, and I had fully elucidated it before examining Mr. Young on the subject. It appears that on the 21st of April, Mr. Young's official account being then overdrawn £31 Is. 3d., he paid in to its credit a sum of £31 55., presumably from private funds, and on the 20th of the same month he paid to credit of the same account a sum of £15 remitted to him by Mr. Wilkinson, Land Purchase Officer at the Thames, for the purpose of payment to a Native living in Mr. Young's district. Neither of these sums was brought to charge in his cash-book, nor was either of them ever debited as paid. The £81 ss. should have been refunded to Mr. Young himself and charged accordingly, and the £15 should have been charged to the Native to whom it is supposed he paid it. He was thus entitled to credit himself with £46 55., reducible by 10s. (the result of an error in his account) ; and when, on the 30th of June, he took this £45 15s. out of the bank and divided it with Mr. Warbrick, he was unconsciously appropriating his own money. I have already had occasion to refer to Mr. Warbrick's " No. 2 account " at the National Bank. Mr. Warbrick had also a " No. 2 account "at the Bank of New Zealand. These accounts were opened with public moneys received from Mr. Young, but such moneys were placed in Mr. Warbrick's hands in an entirely informal and improper way. He gave no receipt for them, and Mr. Young, instead of charging them to Mr. Warbrick in his cash-book, an operation which would have brought the transactions within the cognizance of the Land Purchase and Audit Departments, charged them as paid direct to Natives, and supported the entries by fictitious vouchers, of which Mr. Warbrick states that he has sometimes filled up a hundred in an evening. The transactions in these "No. 2 accounts "are so complicated as to be almost inexplicable. They have been " fed," as already shown, not by cheques charged in the cash-book as paid to those accounts, but by cheques charged as paid direct to the Natives. The cheques charged by the banks as paid out of these accounts agree in many instances in names and amounts with the names and amounts charged in the cash-book in respect of the sums lodged to the " No. 2 account." In many instances they do not; and it by no means follows, even in those cases where an agreement is found between the sums charged in the cash-book and in the pass-book that the Natives got the money; as is evident in the instances of Nuku Paura and Maraea Maraki, neither of whom, as was proved at the trial, received the sums with which they were charged, although a cheque in the name of each is duly entered in the bank pass-book as paid. The explanation is, that the cheques, though drawn in favour of the Natives, were cashed by either Young or Warbrick; and I.was informed by the Manager of the Bank of New Zealand at Tauranga that it was the constant practice of both of them to obtain cash for cheques drawn by themselves on their official and " No. 2 " accounts. I was able in a few instances to ascertain that particular cheques, so drawn, had been so cashed; but, owing to the bank having but recently adopted the practice of requiring the payee to put his name on the back of the cheque, I was in. many cases unable to discover whether the cheque had been cashed at the bank by the Native in whose favour it was drawn, or by Messrs. Young or Warbrick. I have said that in innumerable instances moneys charged as paid to Natives were, in fact, paid to storekeepers for goods supplied. These sums were charged and vouched as payments made to Natives on account of lauds. The charges were made without the sanction, or even the knowledge, of the persons concerned. They were very often entered as payments in respect of blocks in which the Natives charged had no interest, or in respect of which they had already received the whole—and in some cases more than the whole —share of purchase-money to which they were respectively entitled. The sums charged were, more often than not, charged to Natives who had either received no goods from the storekeeper to whom the payment was made, or, if they had received any, the amount for which they were severally liable was, in nearly all cases, either very much Jess or very much more than the amount charged to them. I subjoin analysis of the accounts of Messrs. D. Asher, Home and Eeid, Chaytor, Wrigley, and Commons, showing the several sums paid to those persons, the Natives by whom the goods were received, and, in another column, the names of the Natives to whom the sums paid were charged. It will be seen that in scarcely any instance is the Native liable charged with the sum actually owing on his behalf —that in some cases the Native is charged with very much less, in some with very much more, and in some cases large sums are charged to Natives who never had goods at all.