DE GARIS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1925, Page 4

DE GARIS

INTERESTING PARTICULARS LETTERS TO HIS WIFE. AUCKLAND, Jan. 13. After the disappearance of Do Garis from Melbourne last week his motorcar wits found deserted at Mentone. Remarkable letters addressed to Mrs Do Garis, in which intended suicide by drowning is referred to, were found at Do Garis’ home at Rosebud. In his motor-car, which was louiid between the pier and Beaumaris, were some of Do Haris’s clothing and a letter directing the finder to communicate with Mi-.s De Garis, and to tell her to look in a drawer in the bedroom. Subsequently two letters were found addressed by f l)e Garis to His wife. The letters were as follows:

“Swcthcart Vysie.—The enclosed letter has been w ritten for some days preparing for my departure from this world. I have decided on drowning as tin' pleasantest and surest death. I am eager for it now to he all over. 1 am not drowning myself at Rosebud, because I don’t want the place to he associated with 1 tragedy in your memory. It has c.i many happy recollections, and we have had such a wonderful ten days now that I want the end to he relieved of some of its distressful results, lienee fully dressed early on Monday morning, but with my bathing togs underneath, I will motor along the bay to some spot where 1 II soon he out of my depth and end it all. It is tho first time I have been glad I can’t swim, for the end will only he a matter of moments, and everyone who has been nearly drowned tells me it is a beautiful panorama of past events, from which they dislike being awakened. therfore, my angel, do not worry over me, if you can remember only the few attractive phases ol my character, and overlook with your usual generosity and love, many shortcomings. Dearest love, the hardest part will he to say good-bve without betraying myself. “YOUR LOVING JACK.” The second letter read: —

“My way of spending Christmas has boon to try to appear as happy as possible, while all the time I am preparing to shuffle off on Sunday or Monday morning. But for you, my sweethoari, this would have been done weeks ago. You and little Yoema have been the only restraining force that made me want to live. Aon have been all that a loving and devout wife could he, an inspiration, and a gilt of God, a gift, unfortunately, of which I have been proved unworthy. It is the last hitter light against fate, apparently a well-deserved fate. Though my intentions have always been of the best f have come to roalsie that while alive I am a source of worry ami anxiety and trouble to those T love most and who trust me most, and unfortunately IhaL characteristic increases with every year of mV age. Dead. 1 can at least, have some memories, some redeeming features, which with things as they are and as they promised to be would disappear if T lived. I would rather you lie the widow of a dead man than the wife of a lunatic, and this I am nI ra id I would become if I had to stand the constant pressure of squealers of the past six weeks, and the knowledge that T, for another five to seven years at least, would not he normal to you. Under the fearful pressure of trying to satisfy every creditor and every investor, each one of whom seems to desire and expect special treatment, which is truly impossible for me to give, T only wish I had no wife, nothing to make provision for, though you will get all I have. This is one of the aspects of finance 1 have lamentably failed in. I think my life policy assigned to you is worth about £2,AGO and is secured from your creditors, and this L all I have to leave you besides the miserable few personal belongings you, have. This insurance money invested in Government bonds should bring in about £3 a week. Use it as an income and not as capital. Do noL make the same mistake a* I did ami would do again if I were alive. H is because ! see that my cnutiniiation ol lile would bring von grid and long unhappiness that I am deciding to finish it and leave you free to some day find a better man. We have been so very, very happv. Your illness started my fears for you and their effect undoubtedly gave the impression of financial worry at a time 1 was for three weeks consolidating. This would have meant security and nrnfil to them and tn is, luit then came preparations for a journey that has no roluni ticket. I fell in advance your sorrow, those many reproaches, hut both would lie dear if I lived. My siihiiormality lor the oast three months has made me (hi things that normally. T would not uo to you. not, thank God, in the matter of domestic morality, sweetheart, though the whole of me is weak. Teach \ eeina that her daddy had some good in him. which good was never more manifest than when you, my angel, were near. Millions of kisses from your loving Imsband. „ • ~

“.TACK. DADD V.” Do (Juris married when 21, Miss Vera Cnrbould, from whom lie obtained a divorce in 1922. Tu 1923 he mairied in Melbourne Miss A iolot May Austin, who was lor many years his pi ivate secretary. WHO HE CARTS TS. A REMARKABLE CAREER. AUCKLAND, Jan. 18. Xo company promoter throughout Australia is better known than Clement John He Garis. He is a native of Western Australia, and forty years of age. As a financier of land settlement a fortune has passed through his hands, ft is frankly admitted in Australia. that as an advertiser of land settlement projects he lias no peer in the southern hemisphere. Lest there he any prejudices engendered against a man whose name has gained more than ordinary prominence in the press messages from Australia during the past few days, his own story of his remarkable career may bo given. It was told before the West Australian Royal Commissioner who held at Melbourne in February last year, an exhaustive inquiry intp the affairs of the Kendenup Development Company, :u which Do Claris was a large slmrelioldGiving evidence on that occasion. He Garis said that he bad gone into bis

* filter’s office at the ago of nine years, i but.' later, went to Melbourne college for five years. Then lie returned to the office of his father, a pioneer nt irrigation work in Australia as far back as 1877. In 1905 the youth was taken into partnership and became two years later, managing director also of fthc Sarnia Fruit Packing Company, an Associate company of De Claris and Co. latter, young He Claris bought toi £23.000 property ou the River Murray, paying £1.300 in cash with the balance on tonus. In eight years lie spent C 37.000 on the property and the earnings showed a net average orolii •£SOOO for the last four years he held it. after paving interest on the bank overdraft. In October. 1918. De Clans was appointed director of publicity tor the Australian Dried Fruits’ Association, bis salarv working out at £looo foi the first vea'r and £2.000 thereafter He was authorised to spend on advertising one eighth of a penny per £1 <>n the estimated crop, but. in the hist yeei, because of the shortness m the yield he overspent by £II.OOO. The total expenditure for the first year was £31.000. In addition to positions alr< J a “> cited He Claris also held the following;—Government director of Suiiiajshi' Daily at £SOO per annum, chairman of directors of the Tivoli 1 heatre. Limited at £525 per annum, director of Miklura Amusements, Limited, at .LJt 10s. managing director of Pyap Limited at £3OO a year. . -At that time he had. in fill, an income of £6500 a year. In addition lie had the profits of the various concerns in which he was interested. A statement from the Bank of Victoria, which was produced at the inquiry, showed that the funover of the concerns m which he was interested ranged Hem £19.000 in 1905 to £1.20..000 n .920. the evidence being characterised by De Garis ns “just to set ciif the statements that he was a get-rich-quick V a'. ngford.” , . It may be added that liefore taxing over the’ Kendenup Settlement in West Australia. De C Hs organised a press tour of the Sunraysia districts, fifty five journalists taking part in the expedition. Then he acquired Kendenup

and set out to develop an ideal community settlement. He bought an aeroplane for £lB-50 and flew on a tour of inspection between Kendennp and Melbourne. The machine covered 25,000 miles. Tho settlers, apparently, did not manage to fly so high, and later precipitated an inquiry into the whole business. More recently De Garis visited America on a quest for finance, calling at Auckland in tossing. LETTER. FROM DE GARIS. HINT OF SUICIDE. AUCKLAND, Jan. 13. A shade of deep tragedy underlay every paragraph of a long statement signed by C. .1. De Claris, read at a meeting of the reconstruction committee of the Melbourne Sub-divisions Company, to whom it was addressed at Melbourne. The language of the document shifts variously from pathetic simplicity to brusque business jargon. The matter varies lrom explanations of the writer’s domestic affairs to the proposals for enhancing the wealth of his country. The writer speaks of having slipped a cog in his thinking machine, mentions ruin and absolute distress, and states that when dead he would soon become a memory.

The abridged document reads:— “When this letter reaches you on Monday I will have passed beyond human reach, as 1 have definitely and irrevocably decided to end this terrific burden which has escaped my mentality and warned my sense of right and wrong to such ail extent that except for a few hours at home my lile Las become a misery, and T have lieconie a source of menace to my host iriends. because of the warping of my financial sense aiid my sudden incapacity to concentrate on work in hand—l to whom work laid always been such a wondrous pleasure. This sudden peculiar twist of my nature really assumed big and unexpected disappointments with money, upset my calculations and made me desperate, and since then I have done tilings unworthy of my normal mentality or usual sense of justice, hut which I cannot see any hope ol recti lying if I had lived. Tt seems to me. therefore, that I ease your task considerably hv wiping myself off the universe and leaving you to do whatever you think host without having to consider the feelings of myself or niv wife. “Mv only excuse for the past weeks is that I have certainly been sub-nor-mal or abnormal, and all this is dated from the double strength of domestic illness, which at one time seemed hopeless. and my worried appearance caused by that illness being mistaken for financial worry. But: for that illness I would have made the biggest and most genuine grouping of syndicated estates each with a legitimate development policv, over soon in Austriilm.

“At that time if was easy to get all the money we wanted, and more, much more, hut panic is more infectious than confidence, and panic was begun through domestic illness, worry being mistaken for financial worry, and the idea soon spread that we were up against it. and one after another withdrew promised financial support, until T allowed panic to grip me too. and did things which I would gladly undo if 1 could. If aiiv'ne over tells you that a mail who commits suicide is a coward you can emphatically deny it. It takes more courage to die than to live, and I have only determined to die because I see by that means I benefit everybody and remove obstruction. I naturally often wish now that I hud been killed in some of our plane smashes, at which dangers we used to laugh. These were the days of my prosperity. and death then, in IO2IL would have left mv name untarnished, my integrity undoubted, and m\ commercial status assured. And yel 1 can truthfully say that, in the period 1320 to 1921 i have worked more for Australia and less for myself than at coy

other period in mv history, and bav - ins!. all and gained nothing by so doing. Uiiliiiiicrcinl aviation. pioneered hv Lietil. Briggs and mvself. has developed exactlv on Ihc lines Ilia! we laid down, and on the very mules after our long flights over iiueliarlered rn territories, Australian literature has developed to such an extent that prizewinners of my contest have since become aerial writers, and have successfully published in England anil America. The Kemh'iiuo idea, though apparently a futile failure, will yet. prove to he the only basis of successl ill immigration and land settlement. Deh\drat lon ol perishable goods and eoiw'<11 ion t reduction ol marketing risks must become the method of the future. Incidentally the Kendenup dehydrator tliis year worked at a profit: on potatoes imported from Victoria, a tribute to ’Western Australian enterprise. The dried fruit pool, preferontail tnrifl and Government support have all become accomplished facts, as I forecasted and worked for years ago. In the Sunraysed ureas tho temporary depression in dried fruit land and values can he overcome.” The letter concludes: “Forgive me. if you can, for the worry, trouble, and loss 1 have caused you.”