ONCE REFUSED £180,000.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 10, 3 September 1931, Page 5

ONCE REFUSED £180,000.

MILL-OW^ER flOW DESTITUTE. . • "This is the most tragic of the tragedies that iiave befallen the cotton trade of Lancashire," remarked counsel def ending Joseph Kemp, 65, a company director, of Sawley, nfear Glitheroe, who was indicted at Manchester Assizes for publishing a false balance sheet. Mr J. G. Jackson, K.G., defending, - stated that the name of Kemp became ; a liousehold word in the county, and ,i the whole village of Read depended 1 upon his mills. "You will be able," Mr Jackson went on, "to judge the value of the property when you know that in 1920, before the slump, Kemp was offered £180,000 for the mills as a going concern, but he would not accept the offer. "When the slump came Kemp did not wish to close the mills because . of the vilagers, so the looms were kept running to make goods for stock. That is how these losses started. For The last ten years everything has been Going Down and ©own. In spite of all this Kemp endeavoured to keep the mills running so that the villagers would be employed. "In order to keep the mills working he mortgaged his life policy of £40,000 with the hanlc in November, 1929. When he dies the hank will get £29,000. He has also mortgaged his | home and furniture, and. the mills have been sold to the hank. In fact, he has sold everything, and he stands hefore you without a penny in the world, and j hankrupt." Kemp next sold his pietures and his cars to keep the mills going, but as the result of what had happened the entire village was now unemployed. Kemp was beloved by the villagers, but he was now destitute and penniless. No one had been defrauded of a singie penny. i Mr Justice Humphreys, in, sentencing Kemp to six months' imprisonmeiifi in the second division, remarked that , Kemp had bee:a overwhelmed, as many rich and honest men had been, by the . | cotton slump.