FEDERAL MAIL CONTRACT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8375, 8 March 1907, Page 5

FEDERAL MAIL CONTRACT.

RING TACTICS. Received March 7, 7.38 a.m. LONDON, March 6. Mr J. W. Potter, director of the firm of Birt, Potter and Hughes, in a letter to the Shipping Gazette, in reply to the remarks of Sir Thomas Sutherland, chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, says it is curious that the Orient Company should suggest that the mail contract will entail heavy commercial loss, since the Orient Company themselves offered to modify their rejected tender so as to supply a similar service on nearly the same terms. As regards the alleged impassivity of the freight conference, Mr Potter says that the Peninsular and Oriental and the Orient Companies tried to make it otherwise, as they wrote to the chairman protesting against Mr Potter's association with the syndicate. The matter dropped on the conference declining to interfere. Mr Potter unhesitatingly asserts that ever since then there has been a concerted and organised campaign on the part of the American Shipping Combine and the Peninsular and Oriental and the Orient Companies, who used the whole weight of their influence to cast discredit on the commercial soundness of the scheme. Mr Potter adds that the only fair criticism against the undertaking is that it offers too much cargo accommodation, but with the unprecedented increase in the Australian trade no unprejudiced person will accept this criticism. Mr W. Taylor, secretary of the Orient Company, in a letter to the newspapers, denies Mr Potter's statement regarding an offer by the Orient Company to modify their ten der, also regarding the attitude of the freight conference. Mr Taylor declares that the protest was not made against Mr Potter's association with the but against his failing to inform his partners of the fact. STATEMENT BY MR DEAKIN. Received March 7, 9.57 a.m. MELBOURNE, March 7.*" In a speech prior to his departure, Mr Deakin stated that nothing would be wanting on the part of the Government to assist the mail syndicate. The Government were prepared to ask Parliament to reconsider the situation.'