SECRET COMMISSIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1248, 21 May 1914, Page 4

SECRET COMMISSIONS.

An authoritative statement as to tne results of the seven years’ operation of the English Bribery Act, which is aimed largely at the system of secret commissions, is published in a recent issue of the London Standard. The secretary of the Secret Commissions and Bribery Prevention League (Mr R. R. M. Leonard) declares that while the Act has roused many pteviously acquiescent persons to a sense of the wrongness of the secret commission system and doubly strengthened its opponents, it jet has serious defects. It fails lor instance, to touch the case of the domestic servaut class. Here the system is very widely spread. The worst offenders, Mr Leonard says, are chefs, and in particular foreign chefs. “If a tradesman refuses to give the desired commission the chef sees to it that his w:, income before the employer it' such a condition that the latter at once ceases to deal with him. In the case ot a fishmonger, the fish is kept until it is stale, aud then served up.’’ Gardeners ate frequent offenders. If a seed merchant refuses them a commission his seeds are neglected and do not grow satisfactorily. In the ‘case of a laundry, the washing is brought up covered with dirty smudges. In the case of the professional classes, the working of the Act is claimed to be more effective. Mr Leonard cites a recent case in which, a buyer for a foreign Government, placing an order in England, proposed a secret commission of /,ioo for himself. The seller replied that as he was a member of the Secret Commission League he could not give it. This effectually frightened the agent, who gave the order without troubling further about his commission. This antibribery movement is being , extended to other countries, the Standard says. Germany already has a bribery law and a large league, Sweden will shortly have one aud France is likely to follow suit. An international conference on the subject is to be held in Paris next month. As they stand, however, neither the French nor the German laws affect the bribery of domestic servants, but are concerned only with the commercial aspects of the matter.