Little New Evidence In Long Hearing Of ‘Conspiracy’ Charge

New Guinea Timber Lease Case

THE New Guinea Timber Lease Case again occupied the attention of a major Court in Sydney (Judge Holt) for three weeks, from November 8.

John Smith (“Jock”) Garden, his son Harcourt Garden and Raymond Parer, New Guinea airman, were charged with conspiring with Edward Farrell, to de fraud Hancock and Gore, timber merch ants of Brisbane, of £50,000, by selling them what purported to be a timber lease in the Bulolo Valley, New Guinea.

The Court adjourned the charge against Farrell until next February because of his ill health.

Public interest has been aroused by the fact that Mr. E. J. Ward, Minister for External Territories, and other Govern ment officials, were Crown witnesses.

Garden and Ward had been very close political and personal friends for many years before the timber-lease case first broke at the end of 1947. Garden is at present serving three years for forgery, arising out of the same case. Ward and other officials have been in Court during most of the hearing.

This trial has, to the date of writing, produced no fireworks and very little evidence different from that given in the earlier trial of Garden for forgery.

THE Crown case is that the four men conspired to sell Hancock and Gore a timber lease that never existed.

In giving evidence Ward denied that he had ever had nart in the deal, that he had ever received any money or that Har court Garden had been his dummy in a syndicate handling the deal.

The first time he heard that Hancock and Gore were interested in the Bulolo Valley proposal was in December, 1947, when he also learned that J. S. Garden had a financial interest in the deal. (The “deal” had been going on since 1944).

He had not at any time given Garden authority to sign his name to letters or to inform anyone that a lease had been granted in respect of Bulolo Valley timber.

After the interview with Forshaw and Garden on December 15, 1947, when he had learned the truth about the deal, he had told Forshaw (logging manager for Hancock and Gore) to put his ideas on paper, but he had not told him to send the letter to Garden. (Earlier, Forshaw had stated that Ward had told him to send the letter to Garden who would know what to do with it. It was the third page of this letter that Garden altered, and to which he had forged Forshaw’s name; that sent him to jail for three years).

Ward, in evidence, denied emphatically that he was in any way involved in the conspiracy.

IN evidence, Garden stated that his son Harcourt Garden had had nothing to do with the deal —he was merely a dummy for Ward and had received no money.

He said he introduced Parer to Ward and that Ward had said in his (Garden’s) presence, that he would do all he could for Parer in having the lease granted because of Parer’s work for New Guinea. (In the earlier case, against Garden for forgery, Ward had denied that he had ever met Parer).

After Hancock and Gore had become interested in the timber it was decided to form a syndicate, on which Ward would be represented by Harcourt Garden, and that Ward’s share would be 20 per cent, of the money received. On Novem ber 20, 1945, when he signed a letter “E. J.

Ward per J. S. Garden,” stating that the lease had been granted, he was simply following Ward’s instructions. On December 3, 1945, he told Ward that his

share of the £37,000, that Hancock and Gore had paid as a second payment, would be along that day; and subse quently, on Ward’s instructions, he had delivered a parcel of notes (£5,000) to a William Urquhart.

Garden said that when Forshaw, on be half of Hancock and Gore, sought an interview with Ward in December, 1947, and was told that Bulolo was “out”, Ward asked Forshaw to put his ideas about an alternative area on paper, and send it to Garden. The third page of this letter mentioned Hancock and Gore and, remembering that Ward had said that on no account must the firm be mentioned, he had re-drafted this page and signed it with Forshaw’s name. He ha'd shown the re-drafted page to Ward, who had agreed, but said Forshaw must sign it.

When Forshaw visited Ward again, later that month, Garden was called in and shown the letter he had written in 1945, signed “E. J. Ward per J. S. Garden.”

Ward asked him if he had signed it. He had admitted it, stating that he was only following instructions and thought that it would he all right. Ward said he had no right to sign it. When Forshaw left, Ward said that too many people knew about the deal, and he was getting out.

Garden then asked if Ward were going to “dump” him, to which the reply was: “I will look after myself. You look after yourself. If we don’t get out of this I’m a goner.”

When interviewed by an officer of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch, Garden said that he had stated that Ward was the most honest man he knew and “would not accept even a postage stamp.”

He said that he knew that was not true, but he lied to cover up for a man who, he felt, would play his part. He changed his views on Ward’s honesty when he knew he was going to be “dumped.”

Ward, he said, had “dumped” him be fore, on political matters, but that did not altogether indicate treachery ... It was perhaps dishonest in the business sense, but “in the political sense it was differ ent.”

Mr. Shand KC (for the Crown) asked: “Do you mean there is no honesty in political matters?” Garden replied: “Not much.”

IN his evidence Ray Parer said that he had received £9,000 as his share in the syndicate to sell a timber lease in New Guinea. He said- he and Farrell first discussed the possibility of a timber lease in October, 1944. He already had a gold lease in the Bulolo Valley, which included the right to cut timber, and he told Farrell that he thought that if they could get export permit, it would be payable.

After he left Australia again on war service in January, 1945, he received a letter from Farrell telling him that Farrell had obtained a concession to cut and ex port timber from Bulolo Valley, and a Brisbane firm had agreed to pay £lOO,OOO for it. Farrell also stated he had received a sum of money which he had in a trust account. He asked Parer to hurry back, as it was necessary for him to go over the concession in New Guinea with a representative of the timber firm.

Farrell told Parer, on this occasion, that Ward had promised to grant a concession if he, Parer, put in an application.

Later, he was told that Harcourt Gar den was dummying for someone who did not want his name to be known. When Parer queried this, Farrell told him that he was all right for making out claims in New Guinea, but he must leave the rest of it to Farrell. From that time o A i he had been consulted by neither Garden

nor Farrell, in any shape or form. He had seen Ward in May, 1945, when Mr.

J. R. Halligan (Secretary of the Depart ment of External Territories) had been reluctant to issue Parer and Forshaw per mits to visit New Guinea. Before the visit Garden had said “Eddie will fix it up.”

He and Forshaw had subsequently visited N. Guinea and seen Parer’s pro perty.

RAY PARER gave evidence on Decem ber 1. He was the first new witness of importance—none knew what he was going to say. On December 2, the S.M. Herald Columnist said: “Department of External Territories must have felt lonely yesterday, “Among the observers at the Garden case were the Minister of the Department, Mr. E. J. Ward; the departmental head, Mr. Halligan; Mr. Ward’s personal secre tary; and Mr. Ward’s personal steno grapher; two typists and one filing clerk.

“And waiting outside the court all day was Mr. Ward’s Ministerial car.”

Farrell later had shown Parer a letter signed "E. J. Ward,” purporting to show that a concession had been granted. Parer had then believed that the deal was finally settled and that the delay was over.

Nothing was ever said to him about Ward sharing in the transaction. He was told there was a story about Ward and timber leases in the “Pacific Islands Monthly” in 1945. But Farrell told him that Robson, the editor, and Ward were having a row and not to take notice of it.

The case, on December 2, was still pro ceeding.