DECLARED BANKRUPT

Shannon News, 17 May 1927, Page 4

DECLARED BANKRUPT

THEN MADE A FORTUNE. NEW GUINEA GOLD DIGGER. PAYS HIS CREDITORS. One of the few really romantic stories that have com e out of the Edie Creek Goldfiqlds, New Guinea, was told in quite prosaic manner in the Sydney Bankruptcy Court this week. The man who told it was Harol<J Joseph Hutchinson, who had Lx'fen declared bankrupt, but had made a fortune from the goldfield and paid off all his creditors. . Hutchinson said that between 1923 and 1925 he was a storekeeper in Lansdowne. Ho sold out there, and before leaving for New Guinea in 1925, assigned his estate to trustees. He went to New Guinea to accept an offer of appointment in the Government service. After he left Lansdowne, however, the trustees male him bankrupt, though he said he had no idea why they had done so, and did not know the fact until abopt two monts after he reached New Guinea. He then filed his statement of affairs and expressd his intension of paying his erditors what was owing to them. He left the Government service in May, 1926, and with others proceeded to Ihe Edie Creek Goldfields, where he worked a claim with a partner. H e had had previous experience of gold mining- in South Africe, and the partnership prospered until they both made fortunes from their holding.

‘‘At any rhte made more than sufficient, to pay all my debts,” he told the Court.

When he arrived in Sydney on March 22 this year, he handed to 'he Official Assignee sufficient money to pay off all his creditors. "I now intend to apply for a discharge of the sequestration order on the-* ground that I have paid my creditors in full,” he said, ‘‘and 1 will return to New Guinea to seek more gold.’’ He w r as complimented by the Court oh the manner in which he had met his obligations.