202

deducting the loan to the Superintendent, was
rather more than £500, and that the explana-
tions are not satisfactory.

Adverting now to the deficiency of the 28th
February, 1860, amounting to £1010 9s. 5d.,
it appears from the evidence that on that day
the Superintendent was indebted to the Trea-
surer in the sum of £486 13s. 1d. only. If
this debt had been recorded at the time, the
deficiency would have been £523 6s. 1d. The
Treasurer, in his evidence, explains that a
part of the latter sum would be in the chest,
and possibly that sums may have been ad-
vanced for wages and not credited. In respect
of sums not credited, it has already been stated
that they are allowed for in the Accountant\'s
statement; but, as to the cash in the chest,
no check can be applied to any assertion the
Treasurer may make respecting its amount.
The very day the deficiency occurs, the Ac-
countant also held £500 in his hands as petty
cash. It is clear, therefore, that the sum of
£523 6s. 1d. ought to have been deposited at
the Bank and drawing interest, as the sum of
£500 in the hands of the Accountant was the
utmost amount authorised to be kept out of
the Bank as petty cash. Besides this extra
£523 6s. 1d. the Treasurer had the balance of
the road money in his hands, amounting to
£853 4s. 8d., and the Education Board money,
amounting to £105 12s. 3d. Whether the
Treasurer abstracted any portion of the ba-
lances for his private purposes is undetermined;
but, in withholding from the account at the
Bank so large a sum as £523 6s. 1d. at the
time when the Accountant held £500 as petty
cash, the Treasurer has exposed himself to
suspicion.

It remains next to consider the charge that
the Superintendent had the use of the monies
found deficient on the 30th June 1860, know-
ing them to be public funds.

The Provincial Treasurer insists that the
loans to the Superintendent came from the
Provincial Treasury; that the Superintendent
knew it; that he remonstrated with him at
the time, and told him that he could not give
them otherwise than from that source.

Here we must inquire whether the Provin-
cial Treasurer had an object to gain in making
these assertions; for he could scarcely suppose
it any mitigation of his offence that the monies
he had abstracted were to his official
superior, with a view, it might be suspected,
of entangling that officer, and gaining his own
selfish ends. And here the Treasurer\'s evi-
dence furnishes a clue to his proceedings. We
find that he feared the loan as a
private transaction, lest he should be unable
to force the refund from the Superintendent.

The Committee of the Provincial Council
maintain the complicity of the Superintendent
on the grounds that the Treasurer supports
his charge by a circumstantiality that carries
conviction of the truth; yet, with the exception
of the broad assertion that he told the Superin-
tendent that the monies were public monies and
could be no other, the whole of his circum-
stantial evidence goes scarcely more than to
prove—what his Honor does not deny—that
money was lent. What is not known, and
cannot it seems be now proved, is, that the
Superintendent positively knew, or had been
warned, that the loans came out of public
funds. Here the bare assertion of the Trea-
surer cannot be taken, after his own admission
that he believed, if he had treated the loan as
a private transaction, he would have been
kept out of the money.

The Superintendent, in his public Address
to the Colonists of Otago, solemnly avers that
any transaction he may have had with Mr.
McGlashan was not in his capacity of Provin-
cial Treasurer, and did not take any funds
at the time in his hands as such. And here,
he adds, it may be proper to state that the
Provincial Treasurer is a solicitor in private
practice, and, as such, with monies of clients
passing through his hands, and also that he
was Treasurer for one or two public bodies
(Road and Education Boards), with sometimes
considerable funds in his hands.

The Superintendent here evidently wishes
to draw a wide distinction between monies be-
longing to the Provincial Account, and those
belonging to the Road and Education Boards.
The latter he would not treat as public monies
at all; and would seem to hint that the money
lent to him was taken out of these funds. But
these were as much public monies as those be-
longing to the Provincial Account; and the
only difference between the Treasurer and the
Superintendent, which of these funds the
money was abstracted from, there would be no
essential difference in question. The offence
of him who, in violation of a public trust, ap-
propriated either of them to his own private
use is unquestionable.

It seems from the foregoing, that the enquiry
is narrowed to this: Can it be shown from
facts established, and from the Superintendent\'s
own evidence, that he must have been morally
sure that he was receiving public monies for
his own private use.

First, as to the total amount borrowed. We
have seen that on the 28th February 1860,
the amount outstanding was £486 13s. 4d.
About the 10th March following, Mr. Mc-\nGlashan sent the Superintendent a further sum of
£600 in cash. Mr. McGlashan recollects giv-
ing it from the following circumstances:
He happened to go to the Superintendent\'s
office, but finding Mr. John Jones there,
he immediately retired. In a short time
the Superintendent came into the Treasury
office in a great fluster, and said he was
just settling a £9000 transaction with Mr.
Jones; that it was inconvenient for Mr.
Jones to pay him the money that day; that
he was to do it "to-morrow;" that he
needed £600 that day, and that if he did
not get it he would suffer a heavy loss; that
if Mr. McGlashan would give him that sum,
both it and the previous sum of £400 odd
would be repaid next day, when to a certainty
he would be in ample funds. Mr. McGlashan
believed his statement and gave him the
money,—and as it was to be repaid the next
day, and Mr. Jones was still with him, he got
no voucher for it. The Superintendent did
not pay it the next day, and stated in excuse
that some papers to pass between him and Mr.
Jones had not been completed. This excuse
he several times repeated. Some time after-
wards (Mr. Glashan, cannot say how long) he
got a cheque from the Superintendent for the
sum, dated 10th March; but Mr. McGlashan
states that it is not the date on which he re-
ceived the cheque. The impression on his
mind is, that the Superintendent got the
money on the date of the cheque, viz., 10th
March, on which day a sum of £600 was re-
ceived by Mr. McGlashan for Education pur-