About Those Oats.

Manawatu Herald, 23 June 1896, Page 2

About Those Oats.

♦■ What strikes us, says the Christchurch Pre»s, particularly about the matter (of the oats) ia the easy-going way in which this important business, was concluded. The advance against £80,000 worth of oats, representing at the then ruling prices some 120,* 000 sacks, or over 10,000 tons, would have been one of the largest transactions of the kind ever recorded in the colony. The mere matter of securing the freight Home would have taken weeks—aye, months— to arrange under ordinary eireum* stances. Needless to say, such a quantity of grain, if in store, oould not have been hidden away in '# corner where it would be likely to be overlooked. Yet the Bank officials seem to have accepted, without the slightest question, Mr Fisher's statement that the Ward Association held the oats, and had arranged to ship them to England. They got no bills of lading, made no attempt to send forward the dratt, and in fact did nothing with it until just before the amalgamation with the Bank of New Zealand, when it was cancelled, and recharged to the Ward Association. Accompanying the bogus draft ware [ bogus itore warrants, and those tbt

Bank seem to have accepted with placid contentment. When they cancelled the draft, to the best of Mr Vigers's recollection, they handed back the bogus store warrants by which it was accompanied. Of all the good-natured things done by the Bank in connection with the Ward Association, this seems to us the very acme of Christian charity and forgiveness. If the evidence of Mr Vigers is true, and if the Bank were really deceived in the matter, the „ action of Mr Fisher amounted to the grossest fraud. The plain duty oi the Bank in such a case, instead oi handing back the warrants, was to have impounded those documents and sent for the police. If the Bank did not know the warrants were bogus when they reoeived them, the evidence 'shows that they knew it when they handed them back. According to Mr Vigers, the Bank " knew the oats were not there about September."