MESSRS BROGDEN AND SONS' CLAIM.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2246, 14 June 1881, Page 3

MESSRS BROGDEN AND SONS' CLAIM.

[By Tblbgbaph.]

[fbom otjb own cobbbsponbbkt.] WELLINGTON, June 13. I have some further information regarding the claim of Messrs John Brogden and Sons, who are petitioning Parliament for a rehearing, on the ground that the Select Committee which previously deoided against them had not full evidenoe before it. Therefore its decision that their claim was not substantial is challenged, and a large amount of fresh evidenoe will be tendered. The total claim exoeeds a quarter of a million, but only a smaller item is the matter of the present petition, that on acoount of losses sustained by their firm through certain action on the part of the Government, which is alleged to have been contrary to the agreement between the Government and that firm in respeot to the introduction of immigrants into this colony. Messrs Brogden estimate their original loss under this head at £18,240, and the interest added since 1875 now brings up their claim to £20,739. The ground of complaint is that while they, aoting under the urgent representations of the AgentGeneral, the late Dr. Featherston, introduced 2174 immigrants into the oolony, being 36 per cent, of the whole immigration during the period in question, the Government made a change both in the terms on which the immigrants were to be sent and in the law of imprisonment for debt, the former inducing Brogden's immigrants to resist the payment of promissory notes, and the latter enabling them to do so with impunity. A further claim is being preferred by Messrs Brogden on aocount of the non-payment of sums alleged to be due under contracts between the Government and the firm, amounting to about £230,000, to whioh interest has to be added at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum. A petition of rights has been filed in the Supreme Court with the view of bringing the case to trial. The entire olaim made by Messrs Brogden against this colony amounts to £256,764, but there is a difficulty in enforcing it' owing to the Contractor's Act passed by the Government, whioh contains clauses unknown at the time to the Brogdens, and these clauses preclude recovery of claims in the Supreme Court after a certain period long since expired. They take exception to this Act as faulty, and the whole question is likely to be re-opened both in Parliament and in Court. If so the proceeding cannot fail to be enormously costly.