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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 70

Mr Lawrie to Robert Dobson. Napier, 11th June, l890

Mr Lawrie to Robert Dobson. Napier,

I've finished the job. Mr Ormond had a glance at it and thought it complete, and I hope you will also think so. The work page 15 has been enormous and it was rendered more difficult because the whole business is in such a shocking mess; even the schedules furnished are not in alphabatical order, and you have to search through the names until your eyes ache. The minutes are not indexed, and—well, a needle in a bundle of hay is recreation compared to it.

During the reign of T. T. Ritchie the Directors appear to have exercised no control whatever, in fact, I can't conceive how a hard-headed man like James Smith, of Greenfield, could sit on the Board of a Company which made advances of the . . . . . . description. Smith, however, lives sixty miles from Dunedin, and he has quite enough to do to attend to his own business, and when the Company's money was lent upon numbers of small securities situated at great distances from Dunedin and from each other, the work of supervision became one man's business if he did nothing else. Smith is the man who has the best knowledge of properties upon the Board.

Then we come to Mr A. C. Begg, you know all about who he is. He is, I should think, one of the most unpopular men in Dunedin I always thought that he was so because he was "pernickety," and insisted upon seeing and knowing the why and the wherefore of everything. I suppose T. T. Ritchie possessed his confidence, and so he did not ask questions, but judge my surprise when Begg's work as auditor of The . . . . . . . Co. was referred to by Mr Justice Williams as a "perfect farce." One of the . . . Co.'s clerks was prosecuted for embezzlement which had extended over several of Mr Begg's audits. Just at this moment Mr Begg is engaged in a heresy hunt. It may be good fun, but I fancy it interferes with one's business; at all events it makes feeling run pretty high.

Then we come to John Reid, of Corner Bush, of whom I will only say that he is not John Reid of Elderslie, nor any relation to him.

Bartleman is a good fellow. I have known him many years, but he is solely an indoor man, and I think when he discovered that . . had ruined him, he became to some extent paralysed. He has worked night after night for probably a year in order to put matters in order, but I don't think he has the necessary grasp.

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Everyone likes him; he has not got an enemy, which is the only thing there is against him. There is no life amongst the lot of them. Smith, Bartleman and Begg run a Company called the "Farmers' Agency." which does a small produce business. I think that Smith was the originator, and I fancy he started it in order to cut down the commissions charged by the stock and station agents. Bartleman is a Director of the Westport Coal Company which is thriving. He is also legal Manager for several goldmining Companies, and he does a sharebroking business on his own account, Shares are very dull at present.

When the Edinburgh Board asked the Colonial Board to send Home all the money which could be called in the fate of the Company was sealed. The good advances were of course recoverable, but the bad remain and pay no interest, or very little. I suppose you will have to wind the Company up, and I think the report which I am sending will enable anyone who possesses the necessary knowledge to take up the running.

I have not supplied Mr Bartleman with a copy of my report, but I can do so if your Board wish. No doubt Begg. Smith and Bartleman will look upon the efforts of men like McLean, Reid and myself as the production of young people, and I dont care to put my report in their hands without authority to do so. e.g., Bartleman had the run of my minute book; it was rather rough, as most of the valuations were written whilst sitting in the express wagon. I valued deserted security at £400. Bartleman told me that they had been offered £800. I said why in the world didn't you take it. He said they thought the man would spring a sufficient sum to cover the debt. He sprang off and they cannot get an offer now.