Land Purchase Scandals.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 543, 8 July 1880, Page 3

Land Purchase Scandals.

Wellington, Monday. Some scandalous transactions of Messrs Young and Warbrick, Land Purchase ofiicers at Tauranga, have been set forth in a report of the Auditor General. The main facts arc already familiar to the public through the trial at Auckland, which ended, as the Auditor General says, in a deplorable miscarriage of justice. The report concludes thus:—“ 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 properly in trust to his wife was the act of a self-condemned man. “I endeavored to obtain from Mr Warbrick, his clerk, some explanation of the transactions in the bank accounts carried on in bis name. With that object I re-

quested Mr. Warbrick to meet me at the Land Purchase Office on n day and at an hour specified. Mr. Warbrick,' however, declined. * I leftTabranga oh 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, 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 liis 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 ho produced satisfactory evidence as to his inability to attend on the pieceding day, I should proceed for the penalty he had incurred. Mr. Warbrick paid no attention to either of these demands ; ami I accordingly laid an information against him under section 34 of “ The Public Revenues Act, 1878.” Mr. Warbrick was adjudged guilty, and, being unable to pay tbe penalty was committed to the gaol at Mount Eden, where he now remains.”