THE FRAUDS OF AGENTS.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1244, 2 March 1878, Page 3

THE FRAUDS OF AGENTS.

We lately had some comments on the decision of the Master of the Rolls in the important agency case, Williamson v Barbour. The following is what the “ Sydney Morning Herald” has to say on the same subject: — As we have before remarked, the effects of this judgment, should it be confirmed, will reach very far. It will touch small transactions as well as large ones, and have its influence upon home trade as well as foreign commerce. It is variously estimated by different writers that the business of Manchester will bo affected by it to the amount of from two to four millions a year. It may, as a correspondent in England points out to us, include l lie case of an auctioneer receiving a discount upon advertising accounts, and not allowing it to his principal (unless there be a previous stipulation to fall back upon) ; and the case of a merchant receiving a rebate from an auctioneer but not showing it in his ac-count sales. If it be true that the law is thus specially striugeut in its dealings with fiduciary agents, however serious their position may be, it can hardly be denied that it is for the good of society that the interests of principals should he thus specially protected. And, after all, there is no great hardship involved. Trade transactions should be “fair and square,” as everybody will admit; and there is nothing to complain of if the law requires, in the case of transactions carried on by agents, that everything should also be “above-board.” How are the principals to judge of the fairness and squareness otherwise ? There is nothing unreasonable in demanding that when one man acts as the paid agent for another, he shall make it clear upon the accounts whether he looks for his remuneration to the stipulated commission which his principal agrees to pay him, or whether he seeks it under the form of “pickings and stealings.”