he
in
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October 25, 1909.] responsibility, then he was all the more liable for failure in his trust. But the accused had shown by his actions that he did not think 80. The defence was that he thought had a perfect right to draw these three cheques, for his own private and imme- diate convenience, on the bank on any account he liked. If Mr. Butler Wright honestly thought he corld on September 14th and December 30th, 1908, and on February 1st, 1909, draw a cheque for his own private purposes, or to oblige a friend or let out at interest, he would not have taken the trouble which he did, and which had been proved by the bank books, to first draw the money out of the railway accounts, then put it in his own private account, and then draw it out of that and use it. Dealing with the amount which it was stated the accused was supposed to have tried to pay back, the Crown Advocate said the proper way to have dealt with that would have been to put it in as one clear earmarked transaction; to pay it back one lump to the Hongkong currency account in the International Bank. Instead of that was found an extremely complicated transaction of $4,000 taken out of one account and put into another, and $9,000 brought in from somewhere or other in cash, and then the whole amount not squared up. This attempt to pay back was made because Mr. Grove was worrying the accused to know how the account stood as between the Hongkong construction account and the amount expended in anton in | construction of the railway. The prisoner did nothing that Mr. Grove wanted. Instead of getting out the account in a simple and business- like way he, by a complicated system of raising $9,000, and juggling backwards and forwards with $4,000, managed to remit back through the mercantile agents of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank the sum of 22,948 into the Hongkong construction account. As regarded the amount lent on silk, the prisoner converted the money to his own use by drawing out of the Hongkong construction account and by lending $10,000 to a Chinaman. What he ought to have done when it was repaid was to pay the money back into the account from which it was drawn. When the money was returned to him he must have known that he had advanced it out of railway funds, and if he was trying to conduct the railway accounts honestly, he would have put it back where he got it instead of taking the money a second time. The question as to how far from normal Mr. Wright's ideas of finance might be would be a matter on which his Lordship would direct. A man of his experience and ingenuity, and bold enough to refuse to carry out accounts as two other large railways in China carried them out, and to appoint his own system, must have known what he was doing. He took his risk, and preferred to keep his accounts in a way in which his junior refused to take them over. The speaker suggested to the jury that they would require a very good reason to find that these transactions were innocent. If a man took money entrusted to him, meaning at some- time or other to pay it back, that was larceny. Regarding all the questions of exchange, the Crown had a right to bring in evidence to show that the three specific charges preferred against Mr. Butler Wright were not an accident. In the lower court there was a charge with reference to exchange, but he found this unnecessary, as the three present charges were quite sufficient. The jurors had heard how the accused knew that exchange was rather a difficult ques- tion, and addresed certain instructions to the district engineers. They had also heard how he started the "A 07" account, and how he gave it up,
and the speaker thought defendant's reasons for giving it up would not satisfy the jury. They heard of nothing that had been substituted for the account mentioned. The position Mr. Wright took up was that if he had not been arrested, if all his property had been sold, if he had been asked to come back he could have repaid the railway more than any of the sums in the indictment. That was a new and startling defence, and if that was his defence he should never have gone away from the Shameen unless he was taken away on a stretcher. There was a difficulty in meeting a defence of that sort. As a matter of law, if the chief accountant of the railway took interest and used it for six months, then, the Crown Advocate
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. submitted, the jury must find him guilty of conversion of railway money. The defendant was not only in a position of trust, where he was representing the honesty of Great Britain, but he was representing the honesty of Englishmen in China, and he dealt with those accounts in the way he did. It was for the jury to say whether the defendant was guilty or whether he acted innocently or criminally. The speaker did not see how the jury could say that the accused had an honest excuse: such an excuse as left an honest doubt in their minds as to whether he used the money or not. could agree that the defendant was not respons
If they ible for his actions, then it was a case for dismissal.
not!
Mr Douglas, in addressing the jury on behalf of the defendant, after referring to the very tedious time they had had, said he would like first of all to deal with certain facts which had crept into the case.. It was natural in a matter of so much importance as a charge being laid against the accountant of the Canton-Kowloon Railway that that charge should create a good deal of excitement, stir and commotion. It was not altogether as natural, however, nor quite so necessary, that the rumours which were going about should creep into print, and by virtue of the written word receive sanction they were not yet entitled to. It was in consequence | of that having happened that an application was made to change the venue of the trial to Shanghai. But the fact that such an appli- cation was made did not cast any reflection on anybody, and if there was a feeling in the minds of any of the jurors that it did cast a reflection, that feeling should be entirely removed by the very high compliment which the Chief Justice of Shanghai conferred on the community when he refused the application on the opinion given by the Consul-General at Canton that fifteen men could be obtained to give an impartial verdict. That was a very high compliment to the community, and one the community thoroughly deserved. He felt sure that the jurors would listen with absolute impartiality to what he had to say, and that the accused at their hands would have a per- fectly square deal. He wished the jury to understand that the prisoner was not being arraigned for not keeping a proper system of accounts; he was not being arraigned for making errors in keeping those accounts; he was not, in fact, being arraigned for transferring certain sums of money from the account of William Butler Wright, chief accountant, to the account of William Butler Wright. The charge against him was a charge of larceny; that was. of taking a sum of money, the property of the Chinese Government, and converting it to his own use so as to permanently deprive the Chinese Government of the benefit of that sum of money.
His Lordship-This man is not arraigned for larceny, but for fraudulent conversion of droperty.
Mr. Douglas-That is an offence which is called larceny, and is read with a certain section of the Larceny Act.
His Lordship-There are many offences called larceny.
Mr. Douglas -What I mean to say is that in this case there must be a criminal intent to convert the money to his own use.
Proceeding, Counsel said the charges against the accused were of stealing a sum of $22,000, made up of amounts of $5,000, $13,000 and $4.000. It was difficult, he thought the jurors would agree, for a man standing on a criminal charge upon a complicated matter of accounts, to go into the box practically without assistance, and to give them a clear and concise lecture for an hour and a half on complicated facts. They knew that funds under the railway agreement must be kept in the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and the defendant said that any accounts kept outside of that bank caused, strictly speaking, a breach of the railway agreement, and were not railway accounts at all. Accused told them it was his duty to organise the accounts, and the first difficulty he had to contend with was the fact that he required a very large cash balance from time to time. It was to deal with this that he, on his own initiative, opened the three accounts in the International Bank, and in doing this he took a certain amount of risk and responsibility because he was acting
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outside the agreement. In the event of the bank failing, or anything of that sort, he would have had to make good. He thought there would be some difficulty to the jurors in appreciating the point Mr. Wright tried to make. The accused's actual way of looking at things was that once the money had passed out of the construction account into his hands, it became cash in the hands of Mr. Butler Wright. The prisoner had explain- ed the system by which he kept his accounts, and Counsel submitted that it was not understood at
in their investigations. The accused's story was all, and was certainly discarded by the auditors
that he was himself in receipt of large sums of private cash, and a man in the habit of handling large amounts might become a little bit incan- tious in the way in which he kept the cash in his office absolutely distinct, medicine brought him in an income, and for the His patent sale of a third share he realised $8,500. The defendant had also told the jury that he received as much as $10,000 in connection with work he did on behalf of a syndicate for negotiations for a loan for China. Sums of $13,000 and $4,000 were drawn out of the account of William Butler Wright, chief accountant, and Counsel submitted that the jury were entitled to ask for explanations as to how those sums had been paid back. Defendant's story was only really checkable by the balance, and his case was that he had made payments for and on behalf of the railway out of his own private cash, and there were vouchers which set off the money which he took into his own hands. This method had been going on for some considerable time, the amounts would be amalgamated by a lot of small payments in cash, and it would be very difficult indeed to trace through all the vouchers of the railway. The amount of Mr. Power's passage money was a railway charge. The defendant paid it out of his own cash, but it came in on the debit side as an expense of the railway. A most peculiar feature of this case was that the Crown Advocate looked upon the payment back of a sum of money as a much more suspicious action than the taking of a sum. In the June quarter Mr. Wright decided to close the International Bank accounts entirely, and the closing of those ac- counts caused this transaction to take place. The Crown Advocate had told the jury that the defendant was not being tried with stealing a copper cent of exchange, but he also said that the matter of exchange was important to his case. The Crown appeared to have little confidence in the exchange charge, and that charge was dropped. The prosecution had not made any allowance for loss on exchange, while the system Mr. Wright instituted for keeping a record of that was a perfectly accurate system. He had to deal with various currencies, and wanted to be able to evolve a system of keeping accounts in one currency, and did evolve a very clever system by which all his exchange should, proper- ly speaking, be a bank transaction. Counsel submitted that the accounts had not been properly audited, and that the case against the accused had been very largely supported by evidence of absconding. Some of it had not been put before the jury as fairly as it might have been. The prosecution made out that the defendant was going away because he knew there was going to be an audit of the accounts. As a matter of fact he did know about the audit, but he announced his intention of departing openly. Other evidence called to show that he must have run away was that the things in his flat were packed up, and it took Counsel a little time to get the answer from Mr. Grove in cross-examination that there might have been another reason, and that reason was because the defendant had to remove to Tangshan. The defendant was said to be absconding on account of $9,000, whereas he left assets and debts due to him in Canton which greatly exceeded that amount, Mr. Douglas submitted that it would have been much more satisfactory to everyone if a telegram had been sent to the British Consul-General at Shanghai requesting him to ask Mr. Wright to return and explain. Then, if defalcations were found, he could have been charged with larceny, embezzlement, or whatever was necessary. The mere issue the the jury had to try was determined on the question of intention-intention to defraud the Chinese Government of money. To have that charge made out, the jury ought to be satisfied