69

1.—9

6. Mr. Duthie.] You said just now that you received no moneys from Mr. Wylde on account of Nathaniel Seddon—did you not mean from the Kumara Borough Council?— Yes; I have no recollection of receiving any moneys from the Borough Council on account of my uncle. He used to manage his own affairs, and was well capable of doing so. He was dealing with me at my store, and anything done there in the way of business would be conducted by my manager. Whether he paid cheques or cash I have, after this lapse of years, very little recollection, having had very little to do with the details of the business. I repeat that I have no recollection whatever in the slightest of having received, during the period mentioned in the report, any such moneys from the Council, though I might perhaps, at the time I was Mayor, have drawS two payments while he was away. I may say that I looked at the Judge's notes to see whether there was any reference to this document, for it was a surprise to me when I saw the report in the West Coast Times. I could find no notes made by the Judge, and if there was an exhibit of such a document, it does not appear in the Judge's notes. I found no corroboration of the existence of the document beyond what appears in the West Coast Times, nor do I understand why the counsel at that time (Mr. Harper) asked me the question, " Have you received any moneys on account of that order?" If that report is correct, the document itself would show what it was. There is nothing in the Judge's notes to show that such a document was put in as an exhibit, or that such a question was put to me at all. I may say that never, during the whole of the discussions in the Council, or during the time that I was seeking election, did I ever hear a suggestion of anything being wrong in this way. I never in my life heard any such suggestion previous to Mr. Hutchison making his speech. In respect to the trouble in connection with the irregularities of the Town Clerk: Sometime previous to this, I left the Borough Council, and it was then in a good sound financial position, and they kept so during Mr. Blake's time. 7. The Chairman.] Mr. Blake succeeded you? —Yes, I think so. Well, they gradually got into financial difficulties, went into drainage and other works in advance of the revenue and their ways and means. They were brought up with a round turn by the bank, who would not allow them any overdraft, and the reason was that the then manager (Mr. Thos. Connell) saw the contracts they had called for, and he knew their revenue, and that they would land themselves in difficulties. He simply told them the state of affairs, and the first thing they did was to give instructions to the Town Clerk not to pay the deposits on contracts into the bank. The evidence as to that is corroborated by the then Mayor and by myself; and the fact was that these deposits were kept in the safe. At a subsequent period a rather bad feeling arose in the Council, owing to the action of a man named Simmons 8. Hon. W. Bolleston.] Subsequent to when ? —I mean subsequent to the time of giving the order not to pay deposits into the bank. This Mr. Simmons was found prior to the special audit to be disqualified, and he was put out of the Council. At that time there was nothing suggested as being wrong with the Town Clerk, and the Town Clerk had no ill-will against him. Shortly after this came this whispering that Mr. Wylde had been paying Borough cheques into his own account at one of the banks. I went myself to our own banker (Mr. Connell), and he said it was so. I then asked Mr. Wylde for an explanation, and he said it was money that he had authority to receive owing to arrangements on account of the bank being short of funds. Ido not know whether this action of Mr. Wylde's had reference to Kelly's or Quale's transactions, but at the time I was satisfied with the explanation, and I know that Mr. Wylde was in the habit of making some special arrangements when the Borough funds were short. The next phase was the special audit petition. My letter explains my position in respect to that audit, and why I took exception to it —that is, the letter I sent to the Under-Secretary, dated Wellington, 6th June, 1882, and it is in the papers which came from the Colonial Secretary's Office [letter produced and read, stating that the petition was bad on the face of it, numbers of people having signed it who were not ratepayers—Exhibit F]. That was my letter; and I was surprised on arriving in Wellington to find that there had been a petition got up to have a special audit; and I was also surprised to find that the Mayor of Kumara had been communicating with the Government, and that his letters were not brought before the Council, nor entered in the Council's letter-book—in fact, he had been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with the Government. lamin a position now to know, and I have to say that the signatures to that petition are not the signatures of the persons themselves. You will find in these letters where the persons ask to have their names withdrawn from the petition, some of them having signed through misrepresentation; and, allowing for these withdrawals, there was not the number of signatures required by law; hence the refusal of the Government at the time to grant the inquiry petitioned for in the first petition. But the agitation was continued, and later on Mr. Barnett himself took the matter up. He went a certain distance, and then he came to me in a great state of mind, and told me his troubles, and that he had come to the conclusion not to go any further. He could see that there was trouble looming ahead, and he thought the best thing would be to stop it and go into the matter ourselves. He asked my advice, and I said it had gone too far now, and that the only solution was to have a special audit. I think the Borough Council passed a resolution to go on with the matter, with the result that the second petition was got up, and the audit took place. Then, after the Council got the auditors' report, there was a kind of mysterious whispering, and some communication from the Borough solicitor the Mayor would not- let the Council have. He used to get in a " muddled " state (it was Mr. O'Hagan), but I do not want to say anything against him. However, whenever he got into this state you could do nothing with him, and when the matter did come up the first thing we did was to appoint a sub-committee, and we started to make inquiry. You will find of course the proceedings of the committee as reported, and the first thing was the moving of an adjournment by the Mayor, following which I moved that the action of the Mayor in writing to Wylde, inviting him to attend these special meetings, be approved. Then it was moved by the chairman that we adjourn until the committee meeting at four p.m. on the following day,