FOUND ILLEGAL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 666, 19 October 1933, Page 6

FOUND ILLEGAL

PLAN WONT WORK COURT SAYS MULTIPLE SYSTEM IS A LOTTERY A FINE IMPOSED Auckland, Wednesday Reserved judgment was given today by Mr. Wyvern Wlilson, S.M., in the case of Georg-e Kennedy Elliiot McLean, charged with mianaging a lottery known as the MJultiplication Bureau. The ivEagistrate said the defendant was the manager of a company called the Multiple System, Ltd., which eonducted wihiat ihe might call a isoheane of finance. The nature of the scheme was set out in a pamphlet entitled "The Mjaigde of MultdpLication," which was put in as avidence. After spmmarising tih'e scheme, the magistrate said the evidence of Professor Segar fold him. that, assuming that the Bureau began with only one member, on completion of the sixteenth cycle of succession the membersMip would hiave reached mjany mi'llidns. The business term, "commission" as applied to the moneys to be received by (members, was a misnomer. The moneys so promised might be more rightly designated prizes, to be paid on the happening of future events. The present scheme was unsound economically, and if extended to the whole population it must cease for want of new members and result in a debit balanee. The Early Worms It seemed to him that only the first or early members were likely to receive any substantial reward, and that the possibility of even the first member receiving' payments aanounting to £1500 per annuan were too remote to be worth consideratibn. The reeeipt of so-cailed indirecb commissions and the winninjg of cash prizes were entirely fortuitous happenings beyond the members' control and dapendent upon unpredictable facts. They depended upion the everch'anging circumistances of the lives and upon the impulses of many thousands of unknown persons. He thought it was a miatter of chance, and he was of opinion that the scheme was a lottery. Defendant Was fined £5 ls, with costs.