Postponed

NG Timber Case

THE New Guinea timber lease conspiracy case, which was listed for hearing on August 3, has been postponed for at least one month.

One of the accused, Edward Farrell, was too ill to stand trial. He is said to be suffering from high blood pressure.

The Crown made its own medical check on Farrell after a medical certificate had been handed to Judge Holt in the Sydney Quarter Sessions.

The three other men who are committed to trial with Farrell are John Smith (“Jock”) Garden, Harcourt Garden (his son), and Raymond Parer, pioneer air man. well known in New Guinea. They will be tried on a charge of having con spired to defraud Hancock and Gore Ltd., timber merchants of Brisbane, of large sums of money.

Jock Garden is already serving a 3-year sentence for forgery in connection with the same case. His trial earlier this year caused a sensation in New Guinea and Australia —particularly in political circles.

Mr. E. Ward, Minister for External Ter ritories, formerly a personal and political friend of Garden, was chief witness for the Crown.

It is alleged that in 1944-45, Ray Parer, aviator-gold miner of long residence in New Guinea, applied for timber leases in the Bulolo Valley, New Guinea; that Gar den assisted Parer’s application: that Garden, Garden Jr., Parer and Farrell formed a syndicate to sell these leases to an Australian timber firm, Hancock and Gore for £100,000; that the firm, believing that the leases had been granted, paid out £50,000 to the syndicate: that the basis of the firm’s belief was a letter signed “E. J. Ward, per J. S. Garden,” dated November 20, 1945; that Ward denies that he ever approved of such a lease being granted, and that he at no time authorised Garden to write such a letter.

All these events extended over the years 1944-47.