15

&.-5

it seems to have been a commou practice with Mr. Young to make payments to Natives in want of money, and then to cast about for some block on which such payments could be charged as advances of purchase-money; and in charging to Natives the sums paid to storekeepers he seems in most cases to have assumed the right to charge the payment as on account of any block he thought fit, and occasionally to delegate that right to Mr. Warbrick. As a natural result, it frequently happened that Natives who had not even been consulted as to the sale of their interests in some particular block, would find themselves not only enrolled as sellers, but as having received one or more payments on account. I have discovered several cases in which such advances were charged in Mr. Young's cashbook to one block, and in the voucher, by which he supported the payment, to another. His payments were frequently entered against one man, while the money was actually given to another. Rota Rangihoro, pensioner, and a chief of high character at Maketu, stated, in the course of his examination, that " Mr. Young did not seem to care to whom he paid money due to Natives. If a man died, Young would pay his money to another man. If a man was away in Napier, Mr. Young would pay that man's money to another man, if he applied for it. In some cases the money would reach the man entitled to it; in others it would not." The evidence of other Natives, and notably that of the woman Ngaro, shows how little pains he took to see that moneys payable for land were paid to the right persons. The manner in which the final purchase-money paid was divided was often the subject of loud complaint. It would, no doubt, be very difficult to distribute such payments in a manner satisfactory to all. In view of this difficulty, it was incumbent on Mr. Young to ascertain as precisely as possible the nature and extent of the interest of each of the sellers, and thereupon to take care that the division of the money, if it could not be so made as to satisfy all, should, at least, be defensible as just and fair. The frequency, however, with which the sum of £15 appears in his cash-book as a payment on account of Waitahanui seems to an unlearned eye to indicate that, instead of an endeavour to appraise justly the value of the several interests he was acquiring from the Natives, and to adjust his payments accordingly, he sacrificed the interests of the larger owners by making a uniform payment to all alike. Mr. Young acknowledged to me that, even after the Court had declared the names of the grantees in a block, he had made payments to Natives not grantees on the ground that "they were admittedly owners*in the block." He informed me at the same time that he was " acting under general instructions to use his own discretion." I shall close this report with a brief statement of the steps taken for the prosecution of Mr. Young, and of the course which I found it necessary to adopt in connection with the examination of his clerk, Mr. Warbrick. On the completion of my investigation of Mr. Young's transactions I could come to no other conclusion than that many of those transactions were fraudulent. I determined, however, to afford Mr. Young an opportunity of explaining them if possible. I accordingly requested his attendance at the Land Purchase Oflice; and, finding, after an examination which lasted two days, that Mr. Young was either unable or unwilling to give any satisfactory explanation of the transactions referred to, I instructed the Crown Prosecutor to proceed against him for larceny. The cases selected were the £51 alleged to have been paid to Retreat Tapsell, the £7 charged to Te Mapu, and the £10 charged to Hohapata, referred to in the earlier pages of this report. The first of these cases was tried before the Resident Magistrate and two Justices at Taurauga. Mr. Young was found guilty, and committed for trial at the ensuing sitting of the Supreme Court in Auckland. The remaining two cases were thereupon withdrawn, the Crown Prosecutor stating that they would be brought forward with others in the Supreme Court. At the Supreme Court Mr. Young was arraigned on five indictments (comprising the eleven hereinbefore-detailed charges) for larceny, and the cases were tried before a special jury on the 19th and 22nd of April last. The necessity of having the whole of Mr. Young's accounts in the hands of the Crown Prosecutor for the purposes of the trial has delayed the sending-in of this report, since I was unable to complete it without constant reference to those accounts. The trial has now taken place, and, Mr. Young having been acquitted on two of the indictments, the remaining three were withdrawn. It is impossible to gather from the very meagre and confused account of the trial published in the Auckland papers (extracts of which I enclose) on what ground the verdict of the jury was based. I cannot, however, but regard the failure of these prosecutions as a deplorable miscarriage of justice. There can be no doubt that a large number of Mr. Young's transactions have every appearance of being fraudulent; and his attempt, immediately before my arrival in Tauranga, to assign his property in trust to his wife was the act of a self-condemned man. I have as yet only referred indirectly to Mr. Young's clerk, Mr. Warbrick. I endeavoured to obtain from Mr. Warbrick some explanation of the transactions in the bank accounts carried on in his name. With that object I requested Mr. Warbrick to meet me at the Land Purchase Office on a day and at an hour specified. Mr. Warbrick, however, declined to accede to my request, which I thereupon repeated, intimating at the same time that on his failing to comply I should be compelled, being unable to prolong my stay in Tauranga, to summon him by precept, issued under the Public Revenues Act, to appear before me either in Auckland or Wellington. To this second notice Mr. Warbrick also replied declining to appear, lest he might make " admissions which might possibly be turned to account against him at some future time." I left Tauranga on the following day, and on my arrival in Auckland, whither Mr. Warbrick had also come, I summoned him by precept to attend at my office. Mr. Warbrick failed to appear at the time appointed, but forwarded a note excusing himself on the ground of indisposition. The day, I may remark, was St. Patrick's Day, and I was informed that Mr. Warbrick, notwithstanding his indisposition, had been seen at Newmarket on his way into the country. I immediately issued a second precept, directing him to appear on the following morning, and enclosed the same in a letter, in which I informed him that, unless he produced satisfactory evidence as to his inability to attend on the preceding day, I should proceed for the penalty he had incurred.