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C.0.
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Governme392
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[37593]
No. 1.
[October 11.]
SECTION 2.
24
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 11.)
(No. 349.) Sir,
Peking, September 24, 1909. WITH reference to my despatch No. 317 of the 6th instant, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith copy of a further despatch from the acting consul-general at Canton respecting the circumstances attending the arrest of Mr. Butler Wright, chief accountant of the Canton-Kowloon Railway.
I have already expressed my views on the subject in my despatch above mentioned, and I need only add that I fully agree with the opinion expressed by Mr. Fox as to the position of the British and Chinese Corporation and the moral obligation which they have incurred to make good the defalcations of a man whom they had certified to be a proper person for the post which he occupied.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
:
(No. 103.) Sir,
Acting Consul-General Fox to Sır J. Jordan.,
Canton, September 8, 1909. REFERRING to my telegram No. 21 of the 4th instant, I have the honour to enclose, for your perusal, copy of a letter from Mr. Grove to Taotal Wei Han, managing director of the Canton-Kowloon Railway (Chinese section), describing the manner of Mr. Butler Wright's, the chief accountant, departure from Canton,
Mr. Butler Wright, who was arrested in Shanghae on the 6th instant on a charge of embezzlement of railway funds, is now in custody under remand pending the arrival of the consular warrant.
Although an audit of Mr. Butler Wright's accounts commenced on the 1st September, the discovery of what appear to be serious misappropriations of the moneys in his charge was made, quite by accident, the day after his departure from Canton. Mr. Power, the assistant accountant, opened a packet lying on the office desk, supposing that it contained Mr. Wright's official pass book of his imprest account. In reality the packet contained Mr. Wright's private pass book, which he had evidently through inadvertence left behind.
It was the sight of several considerable entries on the credit side of the pass book that aroused Mr. Power's suspicions and led to an examination of the private and official pass books by the engineer-in-chief and himself, from which it became evident that Mr. Wright had been in the habit of transferring large sums of money from his official to his private account in the International Bank at Canton.
Mr. Wright was apparently allowed to keep sums ranging from 10,000 dollars to 15,000 dollars in his official imprest account in Canton, over which he had sole control, and it would appear that he has never been called upon to render an account of this money.
In view of the fact that the engineer-in-chief has more than once urged the British and Chinese Corporation to institute an audit of the railway accounts, that Mr. Butler Wright, with a salary of only 6001. a-year, and a wife and family to support in England, was notoriously living far beyond his means, and in view of his well-known gambling proclivities, it is, I venture to think, an extraordinary circumstance that these facts, which must have been known to the Corporation's agent in Hong Kong, did not induce them long ago to safe-guard their interests and their reputation by an examination of Mr. Wright's accounts.
Whatever the Corporation's legal responsibility in the matter may be, they are, it seems to me, morally hound to make good the amount of Mr. Wright's defalcations,
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