§ 63. Mr. GINNELLasked what distinction the Director of Public Prosecutions draws between, the offence known as obtaining money by false pretences and the practice of an insurance company in obtaining money by a promise, continued for twenty years, that insured persons would be entitled to a specified sum, and at the end of that time paying less than half that sum; and, the Board of Trade being unable to prevent the continued use of this promise by the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society of Australia as a means of obtaining money, whether the Director of Public Prosecutions, on being satisfied of the facts, can prevent the practice?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSI beg to refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on the 26th day of June last to a question similar in its effect to that which now appears on the Paper, and I have only to add to that answer that, if the hon. Member is, as his question rather suggests, in possession of any evidence of the commission of any criminal offence by this life insurance society, it is, in my opinion, his duty to submit it to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
§ Mr. GINNELLIs it or is it not the duty of the Director of Public Prosecutions, when a question of this character appears upon the Paper, to obtain and examine the papers and literature of the company to which the question refers?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSThere is some limit to the literature that is available to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He does his best.
§ Mr. GINNELLIs it or is it not the duty of the Public Prosecutor, when attention is repeatedly called in questions to the literature of a company, to examine that literature?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSCertainly.