CO129-535-5 N.I. Brewer- transcript of trial and evidence 1-1-1929 - 31-12-1931 — Page 70

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Statutory Report and the circumstances under which it had been produced.

The Crown frosecutor adduced in his final speech that this was en important document, calculated to deceive investors, but in rong Mong that is not tave - it may be so in England for people to refer to the statutory report - but it is not true in hong Kong. No Chinese ever does, in fact, look at the Kegistrar's file. I knew that no chinese do in fact lock at it I knew that all our shareholders end depositors were chinese, so that there was not a thousend-to-one chance of any investor looking at that report and being deceived by it. It is signifi-| cent that all the excuses given by shareholders, when questioned about their liabilities, no sharehol der come forward and said “i looked at the statutory keport and was deceived by it”. The reason being X that the constitution of the statutory report is a thing that is unknown to the chinese investors. It És not conveivable that in the vain hope that this thousand-to-one chance of somebody going to look at the statutory hemort, that for the sake of that chance I would commit a criminal offence. If I had muccedded, i personally stood to benefit nothing, the firm would have benefited. My holding in the firm

is 200 shares out of 10,000. which had been issued on that date. with this smail chanee of gaine, it le not conceivable that I should have made it fol that purpose. This remote chance was the only use mode of this false statement and if the system of Zoans and payments, with the proper bookkeeping, was invented solely to justify that false statement, the whole of this labour, as well as the risk run, was anparently performed solely on the chance of the Registrar's file being inspected. Not only was the Statutory report not printed, but in all the advert- isements of the stone sanking corpération Limited, not in one of these advertisements, does a statement appear that the cash received in respect of shares isgued wholly for cash exceed $800,000.00 or anything like it. it is quite customary ior banking firms to put such statements in their advertisements. The instone Panking Corporation never did so. The instone Pank itself, issued pamphlets, booklets, prospectuses stating what trustee banking was and explaining their position, and yet in none of these do you find a statement that cash received in ruspect of shares exceeded 800,000.00. Mor does it appear anywhere ekte except in the statutory report.

The Statutory report itself could not have been issued for a fraudient purpose by any reasonable person, because it had not a chance of aucoeeding in freud. The Instone Pank itself ex- isted for no fraudulent purpose, it was built for peruenence, it was Hugrested we bought the building for the sake of improving our name, Certainly the building did improve our name and status, but anyone who is building for fraud does not invest majority of their capital in equity on buildings. we notified the public that we intended to stay, that we were to fulfil our promiseto the public, and we followed up that by purchasing our own premises in shejki, also because we were XXX building for permanence.

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