HUGE FRENCH FRAUDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 336, 24 June 1911, Page 2

HUGE FRENCH FRAUDS.

THEFT OF £200,000. ! DUEZ SENTENCED. By Cable —Press Associativa—Copyright. Received 22, 10 p.m. Paris, June 22. The trial of M. Duez, formerly liquidator of the funds of the French religious orders, on a charge of embezzlement of £200,000 of the money received from the liquidation, has resulted in his being found guilty, and ke has been sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.

EXTRAORDINARY CONDITION OF AFFAIRS. The arrest, in March, 1910, of M. Ducz, who until the previous year had been one of the principal liquidators of the property of the religious orders, created a profound sensation in France. The scandal has been ripening for some time. The commission which the Senate appointed in 1907 to inquire into the liquidation of the property of the congregations soon arrived at the conviction that grave irregularities were taking place, though it was at first supposed that they were mainly concerned with excessive charges for the expenses of the liquidation. Thus the expenses of M. Duez were understood to have been returned at something like £200,000. M. Duez sent in his resignation on grounds of health, and two successors, M. Jacques Pelegrin and M. Desbleumortiers, • were appointed. The two successors of M. Duez soon discovered that a sum of £BO,OOO received from the sale of the Stanislaus College had simply "evaporated." M. Duez himself finally requested an interview with the liquidators, and said: "I have deceived you. When I asked for time it was not to put my accounts in order. I knew that I could not find the money to balance them. It was in order to consult my friends as to what I ought to do. They advised me to tell you the whole truth. I speculated on the Bourse and had heavy losses. You have discovered £24,000 of misappropriations of private property. The amount is really £40,000. • M. Lemarquis: "Did you tell the truth as to the property of the religious orders at least?" M. Duez: "No. The balance against me in that business k £160,000." M. Lemarquis promptly intimated that he must at ence. inform the judicial authorities. M. Duez replied: "Then I must shoot myself." But M. Lemarquis reminded him that he owed it to public justice to give himself up. The previous career of M. Duez (says "The Times," throws a' strange light upon the selection of the liquidators of so vast a confiscated property as that of the religious orders, which amounted in value, according to M. ' WaldeckRousseau's estimate in the year 1000, to the sum of £40,000,000. M. Duez, who had to deal with the property of 13 of these orders, was formerly employed at the Bon Marche, a Paris department store. He left that establishment in order to become a clerk in the office of a judicial administrator, a M. Humbert, where he worked for a many years. M. Mumbert then obtained for him from the then president of the Civil Tribunal of Seine admission as a member of the body ol judicial administrators, It appears that these judicial administrators or liquidators arc not properly speaking officials of the State, but simply persons to whom the Civil Tribunal entrusts business as their services, are required.