The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1882. THE BUILDING SOCIETY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1038, 2 December 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1882. THE BUILDING SOCIETY.

The annual general meeting of the Building Society decided not to allow its proceedings tc be reported. This is the first instance of a popular institution refusing to allow the p.rocedings of its annual general meeting to be, reported that has ever come under our notice. Banks actually pay papers tor publishing reports of their meetings ; many' institutions adrertise their reports and balance-sheets, and every one jof them try to get the fullest publicity given to their proceedings. We do not 6ay that the Society had no right to refuse to allow its proceedings to be published. They certainly had a right to do so ; but we say that they could not adopt a more effectual way of destroying the Society. The fact that they refused to publish their proceedings is sufficient to make the public suspect that the Society is not what it ought to be, and consequently will not care to do business with it. The grounds on which it was decided that the proceedings should not be reported were two : first, because no one outside the members had any interest in the Society, and consequently had no right to know anything about it ; and secondly, because there were certain matters placed on the balancesheet which were not deemed' fit for publication. As regards the first reason, the object of the Society should be to get outsiders into it, and consequently it ought to give the public the fullest knowledge of its position, so as to increase its membership. The institution was first started for the public good, and consequently to prevent the public from knowing anything about it is to adopt a course diametrically opposite to that which was intended. Instead of doing what they can to advance the Society the Directors are thus doing their best to destroy it, and they are succeeding admirably. With regard to the publication of the matter contained in the balance-sheet, we quite agreed that it would not be right to do so. During the short time we were allowed to stay in the room we got a glimpse of this precious document, but as the Society decidad that their transactions should not be published we feel in honor bound not to go into details concerning it. We may, however, say that it was unlike anything of the kind we have ever seen, and that it betrayed the utter incapacity of the Directors to draft a. balance-sheet. In balance-sheets borrowers' ana depositors'

names are never given. There is only a statement of liabilities and assets given without names, but the opposite course was adopted in this instance, and hence its unfitness for publication. Even the Chairman of Directors said he did not agree with the report. Is not this an extraordinary state of affairs ? The Directors submit a report with which they do not agree. It betrays the most extraordinary, mixed-up state of affairs that it would be possible to conceive. We do not think that the Secretary should be blamed in the remotest degree for these things, because his busi-

ness is to do what he is told. Man never reduced himself to a degree of absurdity more ludicrous than that of Mr Mendelson's, when after reading the report of the Directors, he said he did not believe it. In the name ot common sense if he did not, who could believe in it ? We could say many other tilings concerning the position of affairs only that as the Society deemed it advisable to exclude us from their proceedings, it would not be consistent with our principles to pry into their affairs, more minutely,, It is not, however, out of our province to refer to its consultation. No member is eligible for the position of Director unles he has 20 shares in the Society. There are only seven members holding that number of shares, and only these seven members can be elected as Directors. If general elections took place once every minute of the year the same members would have, by the rules of the Society, to be always elected. There can never be any change, because there is no other member qualified for election. Now, as regards tbsse members, judging from what we saw that evening, without paying any attention to most damaging stories and rumors that are going about, we do not think that they possess, taken as a whole, capacity or aptitude for directing the Society. There was only two of them present at the advertised hour, for tke meeting ; one of them put fin an appearance at all ; and s&mtejjiof the others oame only "dieujlHlljM werqj . specially sent for. If t§FTurcctors show such apathy regarding the annual

meeting, it is only reasonable to infer that they bother themselves very little about the raonclily meetings. But the position of the Society .shows much better the way it has been mismanaged. We cannot, however, enter more minutely into it. It appears to us that when this qualification for Directorship was framed, the intention was to keep the management of the Society in the hands of the rich, and that its unpopularity can be traced to tliat. If, as in the case of the Dairy Factory, every shareholder were eligible for election a? a Director we feel confident that the Society would have been more popular ; that it would have attained a greater degree of prosperity than it has ; that it would have been better managed, and that it would

not have been in the state it is in at present . We hove no hope that any suggestions offered by us to tho Directors will be accepted—they know too much to take any body's advice. Still we may say that the only thing that can be done now is to remodel the rules so that that every member will be rendered eligible for election, and thereby to try to popularise the institution till the public at large begin to feel an interest in it. In fact, it must be started afresh, and placed in the hands of better managers before it can do any good. If this is not done it will never succeed, and it is a great pity that it should not ) because, if properly carried out it, would do avast amount of good to tne town.

THE WELLINGTON CONSPIRACY CASE. The Adams conspiracy case is evidently at an end. A telegram from Wellington published in our last issue gives the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case, to the effect that as the jury found Adams and his daughter guilty, Longhurst must be innocent, and as the daughter was in law too young to conspire, the conviction against both father and daughter must be quashed. This has been a most extraordinary case from beginning to end. So far as we can recollect, it began about three years ago. At that time a young mail named George Longhurst disagreed with his stepfather, and went to live alone in a house belonging to himself. On hearing that a relation of his named Adams was in straitened circumstances, Longhurst invited him to stay with himself in his own house until suck time as he could procure a house. Thus it was Longhurst's good nature that first brought him into contact with Adams. They lived for about twelve months together, until at last Longhurst

wanted to make some new airangements, and told Adams to look out for a house tor himself. During all this time Longhurst charged Adams no house rent, and it appears the latter did not like to be disturbed. A short time afterwards Longhurst was arrested on a charge of committing a rape on Adams' daughter, a child about seven years of age, and on being tried was sentenced to 8 years' imprisonment and three floggings. Longhurst had friends who believed him to be innocent, and they at once set to work, with the result that, they got together evidence enough to warrant the arrest of Adams and his daughter on an information charging them with conspiring together to procure the conviction of George Longhurst. The trial came on ; George Longhurst was brought out of prison to give evi dence ; several other witnesses gave evidence, and the result was that the jury found Adams and his daughter guilty of conspiracy. Anew difficulty arose. Counsel for the prisoners appealed on the ground that the jury ] was misdirected by the Judge, inasmuch | as that he ought to have stated the girl Adam? was too young to becapable of legally committing such a crime. The result was that the conviction was quashed on appeal. The judge sentenced the girl Adams to be imprisoned till the rising of the court, and she has served that term, although she was in law too young to be capable of crime ; but her father, who has been pronounced by a jury to have been guilty of one of the most scoundrelly acts that it would be possible to commit—that of obtaining the conviction of a man for a heinous offence and thereby depriving him of his liberty —is allowed to go scot free. Adams was pronounced by a jury guilty of procuring George Longhurst's conviction by conspiracy and false witness —yet the higher Court rules that his action did not amount to a legal crime, owing to the very circumstances which morally made it more heinous (assuming the jury to have been right in deeming the facts substantiated), namely, that the person with whom he was convicted of conspiiing was his daughter, and too young to be capable of conspiring, being in fact under his influence.

But she, the child, who is now declared so entirely incapable of committing the crime that her incapacity quashes the conviction i-f her co-conspirator, she has alraady been sentenced, and has undergone her sentence. And Longhurst, whose conviction a jury, on full review of all the facts, declared to have been wrongfully arrived at on false evidence, the result of a conspiracy, he remains in prison, having already undergone two floggings and more than two years' penal servitude. The whoh; case is a bewildering jumble of extraordinary contradictions. The prisoner now declared incapable of the crime alleged, has suffered her whole punishment. The prisoner who was declared to have been convicted on false evidence, has suffered the chief part of his punishment. The two could not possibly both have been justly punished. One conviction and sentence must have been unjust. The third prisoner's conviction w&s utterly inconsistent with that of Longhurst : its quashing is equally inconsistent with the sentencing of his daughter. A more striking instance of the fallibity of human reason, human law, and human testimony was probably never before presented to an astonished j and bewildered public.