WHITAKER WRIGHT.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 848, 24 March 1903, Page 3

WHITAKER WRIGHT.

DODGING 'l'm: LAW.

By .Telegraph—Press Association-

Copyright.; ... NEW YORK, March 23. Received 10.45 p.rn., March 23. A' firm of Chicago brokers is suing Whitaker Wright to recover . two thousand dollars brokerage, incurred when he. resided in Philadelphia. The action may delay extradition,

Three finance companies associated with tho name of Mr Whitaker Wright as their chief promotor and manager, and

hrco mining companies closely connected with them, went into liquidation in the year under roviow. They show total liabilities of £3,175,1578, of which only £1,1160,000 are marked as “ secured.” The I value of tho gross .assets belonging to this ' group is estimated in tho statement of affairs at £7, 209,100, but there is, the roport says, no probability of that figure being oven approximately realised. Tho assots aro of a highly speculative character, and, according to the best estimato which can at present jbe made, their total value is not likely to exceed £1,500,000, This I leaves an apparent deficit of over £1,500,000, or, if the vendors’ shares are included, and many of these have been placed on tho market and sold to the public at prices much beyond their nominal amount, of £7,500,000. The London and Globo Company was formed “ for all kinds of financial operations,” and tho LritishAmorica Corporation and the standard Exploration Company has practically the same objects, so that thoy were purely speculative concerns. Tho shareholders knew this, but apparently had confidence in tho directors. The directors, for their part, left the entire control of the financial operations in the hands of Mr Whitaker Wright, and while they drew large fees as officers, they admit having failed to inform themselves as 1o what lie was doing. The managing director had an interest of £321,925

in the reconstructed London and Globe Company. “ A vast number of these shares," says the report, “ were subsequently sold in small lots to purchasers residing in all parts of the United Kingdom at prices averaging about £2 5s per £J share, and the greater portion, if not the whole, were disposed of during the sixteen months following the registration of the Company. 'Some idea of the extensive character of the dealings in the Company’s ...shares about 49,000 separate transfer deeds may be gathered from the. fact that arc recorded in the books of the Company, and that the number or shareholders increased from less than 4000 at the date of the original allotment in 1897 to about ten thousand at November 7th, 1899, the date

of the last return filed with the Registrar.” That the Government should have refused to prosecute in a case that has involved the trustful British public in a loss of seven and a-half million pounds—reducing many probably to beggary and despair—argues a sad defect in the law, or lends colour to the suggestion that some high in authority have had their lingers in the pie.