MESSRS BROGDEN AND THEIR IMMIGRANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 3329, 21 October 1873, Page 2

MESSRS BROGDEN AND THEIR IMMIGRANTS.

It will be remembered that Messrs Brogden sought to recover from some of the persons they introduced into the Coleny the amounts of certain promissory notes given by the mon in England for the amount of their passage raqnej, &c. The defences were that Messrs Brogden had, by agreement in writing, undertaken to find the men with two years’ employment, wages not to bo less than 5s per day, and that on ths men’s arrival Messrs Brogden, having sub-let their contracts, hadno employment to offer, but referred them to the sub-contractors ; that, consequently, Messrs Brogden having themselves broken the agree* ment, the men were relieved from their liability on the promissory notes. One of the immigrants, Murray, brought a cross-action again&t Messrs Broaden and Sons to recover the sum of LIOO for damage alleged to have been sustained by him through Messrs Brogden not having found employment for him as agreed. Ihe effect of the decisions just given by Mr M'Uulloch, R.M., at Invercargill, before whom the cases were heard, appears to be that the immigrants introduced by Messrs Brogden and Sons are responsible for the amount of the promissory notes, whether they are retained in the ser« vice of Messrs Brogden and Sons or not; and OH 'the oilier hand, that Messrs Brogden aui Sons, in the event of their declining to find employment for their immigrants in terms of agreement, commit a breach of agreement for which they are liable in damages. In the alluded to. the damages given were nominal, because it was shown that the plaintiff could easily have got employment at higher wages than those which Messrs Brogden had undertaken to give. —Southland Times,