Our Letter Box.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7898, 14 August 1905, Page 2

Our Letter Box.

,We are not responsible for opinions expressed by correspondents.) HE MR F. W. RICHMOND'S BANKRUPTCY. (To the Editor.) Sir, I trust that you' wall extend to me your usual courtesy bv publishing this letter which,' in ' justice to myself und my family, I feel-com-pelled to -write in refutation of charges tirade against; me asJMr Richmond's partner in several land transactions. These charges were made at the meetinf< of creditors held last Monday afternoon in Xew Plymouth, and I would !lw no man to leave them unanswered.

At that meeting (the report of which 1 first read on Saturday night for I have .been out of to\v »)"llr Gov"tt. as .solicito-.- for Mr Richmond, clearly implied in his opening remarks.' that his client's bankruptcy had Itccn o<c,ision«d I4\- bit) following my advice. From the general tone of the report of the meeting, whenever my name was mentioned 'I jsnther that the creditors - felt inclined to agree with Mr Govett. I.et me now tu.Ufl up n little of your valuable space, by relating', the particulars* of thu f.uiil transactions referred to I have sufficiont faith in the 'discernment of the public to allow thein to judge whether or not Mr R-ichtuoifd came to grief through following; jmy advice. About six or seven months ago J induced Mr Kichmond to pay £l5O in order to secure 17,500 acres known as the I'aengaroa Block. Within throe months of his payingthe £l5O we en mo out with a net profit of £1425 ! Thcro was no loss in -this transaction. The profits were placed to the credit of Mr Richmond, Mr Lennon, and <mysplf. We three in the meantime had purchased tho Marabou Estate at. Maxwelltown at. £60,000, and the profits fnom the Faengnroa Block (£1425), together with about £SOO in rash, -were paid •i.v Mr Richmond and Mr Ijennon to the trustees of the late Robert. I'harazyn to secure the Marnhau Estate , and na agreement was signed. My name did not appear in the agreement, but I asked Mr Richmond to act as trustee for me. T did not d« ™, as implied by Mr Richmond, in order to keep a valuable security n secret from my creditors. Any creditors I ever had havo 'always found mo a man, and 1 never served any of them such a dirty trick. 1 state that I asked Mr Richmond to act as m' trust ?o because I l>clicved that ho md Mr Ijennon could finance as joint owners more easily than if the 'hrce names appeared on the contract oV roister, for, as most people -now, I hud been in financial difli■ulty. I then v.'M-.t to V'enraniii :: h 1 ar•anKe;l with the ng.nts for the re•iiile of Marnhjiu, and eventually th-i! Miole of the property was disposed ot. but we agreed to take as part Raynul rt. the Mermwre I Estate neir Hawera. at £15,000. Showing that '".V a-lvice to buy fhis t-s' :>te was rood, my opinion h-is been closely supported Ivy thr.-e well-known Ha-wei-a valuers, vi/.. Mr Tlarry Oovl. Mr Walter Young, and Mr Charles Miiio:-. M.11.H. The lowest of theiv:>luetions was £l-1.500, and seeing that (heir valuations were made f 01 ! " ellinsrtrn trustees i„ order that we '■Uht raise a loan on fust n ( ,ru>;a>re. t may safely be reckoned tint ilic 'he pi-o|XTfy could have been realised by as ; ,t taoon or £;j000 j,, aiivance of then- valuation. In order v> complete tho purchase or tho Meremere Rstate, \w liail Us "•nisft n loan on mnrl .autre of £BOOO Had this Jojfin bwn arrant I. nothin" njore was ncrcssary i„ 0 «!er t„ coni- , Plcte tho pu: chase and sale of Wnraliau, and we should have hold the Meremere (nonrl.v 4-000 acres, 11 miles from Hawera) siibiect t u mortgage of only £BOOO.. ' l believed ind still believe, that it is possible to sell tie property at £J(>,SOO, at which price, having paid the mortgagee his £BOOO, we should have com- out with £BSOO cash, against a I o!al actual cash out-of-pocket- payment, as -deposits on the three estates, of less than £IOOO. I h the face of these facts I fail -to i seo in what way I can have caused Mr Richmond's bankruptcy. On the conrary I think that I had helped him to acquire a -good asset. Mv sh-m <>i the equity of redemption 'in the Meremere Estate, eveit taking (he Flaw era valuers' figures, -would havn been about £2600, (but J valued i t nt about £.'1500. At the meeting of creditors, Mr Richmond remarked that "ho t w d been keeping Watt's family." This was most ungentlcninnlv remark and further, was untrue j generally ke.'p my family myself, and neither All Richmond nor anyone else has had to give my family a cent On the contrary, I have b-en making largo profits, as shown above,"for the partnership, a nd thereby assisting Mr Richmond -to make money for his family. X certainly admit that I have hiwl advances .from, him, and that hu hits guaranteed sundry accounts 'or me, ,but ho was my trustee in the matter of a two-fifths share both in the Marahnu and Meremere estates 'lh « th 1,0 nnd 1 know 1 - hat "hen the Meremere was sold he could ropay himself with interest and place credit C ° my two " lifths to my I

Allow me to repeat that the only tung to tfw done to complete the purchase of the ' Meremere ' Estate was i raiMn J? of n mortgage of £BOOO. I was m Wellington endeavouring to n-.u ' nnd when thCTU 1 '"ft Mr Hichniond. lie seemed inclined to let, the whole transaction drop, and explained to mo that were he tc sjffn a mortgage. and thin become bankrupt within a short time it would conipl.oate matters. I said to him : "If you complete the transaction (it in now simply a matter of raising a ],< an and signing i\ mort- £«£<>) you need never be bankrupt ion have helped me ; if j t W j;] H ,, xXl Jou tnko my share and Lennon's (Mr Ixtnnon backed me up), call the Mere-nier-e your own property, hang on till the spring, sell thj property, and Pay all your creditors in full. You can pay me back" out of the next transaction." He would not talo mv Qdviee, or he would never have As the result of my sixmonths' work* we -had made at least £(>000 had the Moreincre been completed. So far as tho report of th> UWQting of creditors .goes, tho Moremere .never was qohipleted, and Mr (Sovett stated th n t there Waslnvjthln* in the Mar a ha\i, If Mr Oovett was

correct-, tihen my six (months' w,;>rk iias been in vain. But it is most remarkable that on Monday night last, I am well 1 informed, the Marahau property was conveyed, with jVlr Uichmond's consent, to Mr Heid, and tho Meremere properly transferred to Messrs Darling nn( [ p O p 0 » p arl _ ners have not told roe jany thing of this, and Mr Clove tt, -when stating that there was nothing in the Marahau, cgul'd not have known that up till midnight on Monday last (he partnership -was suitably entitled to call for n transfer of the Meremere upon payment of £BOOO, which could easij.v have been arranged on mortAs a matter f)f fact, fa loan 'of £4OOO has lie n raiscfl on mortgage' on the property hy Messrs Darling and Pope, Meantime, the position is this : Paengaroa, Maralmu, and Morr>mcreEstatos, purchased by mo on account of the partnership, have all been sold and transferred at a profit . And, as th • Wa'.ng-anui agents know, the profit -would have been much greater but for one blunder made in Nanganui by my partners, which blunder I afterwards f>artin 1 ly rectified. H>nv then can Mr lliehmond'g bankruptcy lie <vt my door? Xow, ro the I'niti property. Mr 'Mcintosh wanted £-5 per nere cash ■ for it. Mr ICing sold an inferior pro-1 perty, although in a slightly better | position, two years ago at'nenrly th<jj same price. I advised Mr JMdv mon'l, as n frjend, to (take over the! property in exchange for a half in<in tho Tarannki Hotel, for which he had not even an, agreement-. F charged no commission' either to him or tg Mr McTntysh, I rc-sold IJio

lea»c to l)r. Peers at £5250 in ex* change for a Lambton Quay property at £l'jo a foot. This property has since been valued hy the valua* ; tor of the Mutual Life Society, Wei- ( ling ton, at the same figure. Mr Rich-1 mond met with difficulty in financing a mortgage 011 the Wellington pro-' pcrty as it was non-rent producing in the meantimp, anil the ex<(hange itll through. I sold the steel pipe* to a Wellington gentleman at a profit of £390, in exchange for Webb .Street, property (at £2~> per foot). 1 placed no value on the buildings, which wire described at the meeting of creditors as "tumble-down." 1 reckoned the bare land (a qoxnur section on the electric tram route) w'as worth the money. The property was bi'ingingiin alsoul 6 por/cent. net from rents, and 1 arranged ai 5 per cent,, mortgage for the balance of tho purchase money. Mr Richmond re-

fused to complete. tin ihe whole 1 know thljt I h«vo done my level best for my partners t iin l myself, and had Mr Richmond ! not lost heart at the very time wH'-n t success was upon us, the three of us would have been in u good and solvent position. II am deeply sorry for Mr Richmond, 'but as a Aval answer to tlie statement that I was the c,us! of liis present position., I submit. that from tho evidence 'given at th<i meeting of creditors he must hav« | been .insolvent long before he joined me in a.ny speculntion. In the meantime the l'aengaroa, Mal'ahau, oivd Meromere Estates have been bought and sold at good profits. I have not received my share, and at tho'' meeting of creditors, so far as I can learn, everybody was .given to understand that tho Meremere whs a myth, the- JVfarahau a bad spec, anil' Edgar Watt either a rogue or a fyol. Thanking you sinccivly, Mr for granting nie tho use of so much of your space, allow me in closing t|o make one more statement —that if Mr Richmond, Mr Govctt, or any creditor requires proiif of what I have said,. I will give them all the proof they want if they will place me on oath at tho next meeting of creditors.—l am, etc., EDGAR WATT. Now Plymouth, Aug. 13, 1905.