31

I.—lo

148. Did you when mentioning these facts state to the Committee that your Sydney brokerages were the same as you had given in evidence as obtainable in New Zealand ? —-Yes, the Shipping Company's. 149. Are you now prepared to state the brokerage paid in Sydney, either to your branch there or generally to agents, is 7-J per cent. ?—I am prepared to say the brokerage is similar to what is paid in New Zealand. 150. Are you prepared to state the brokerage is the same in Sydney as that of which you have given evidence ?—Mr. Paterson told me on one occasion they received 10 per cent. 151. I am referring generally to the brokerages paid during the current year in Sydney?— That is the understanding of my conversation with Mr. Paterson on the subject. 152. You are not prepared to state that your firm gets 7-J- per cent, in Sydney ?—I am prepared to say that they have got as much as 10 per cent. 153. This year ? —Well, I cannot say this year. 154. Would you be prepared to contradict my assertion that the brokerages paid in Sydney are not 7-J- per cent. ?—Mr. Paterson has told me that they have received as much as 10 per cent, from the shipowners, or Gibbs, Bright, and Co. 155. There is generally a difference of one-eighth more or less, say, in wool freight between sailer and steamer, is there not ? —Sometimes, I think ,there may be only a difference of one-sixteenth. For a number of years the difference was one-eighth. 156. Are you aware that frequently the freights in Australia by steamer and sailer were pretty well the same?—My impression is that the steamers are higher as a rule. 157. Is it not a fact that cargo-steamers are beating the sailers out of the field at level rates ? Are you not aware that the cargo-steamers are practically beating the sailers out of the field ?—-I am perfectly well aware that the sailers are being largely driven out of the field by steamers. That is a known fact. The steamer tonnage is increasing, and at a very much greater ratio than the sailer tonnage. 158. Is it not a fact that the sailer tonnage is actually decreasing?—l am not prepared to say that. I am not prepared to say the whole sailer tonnage of the world is absolutely decreasing. 159. It is so. Is it right, then, that in New Zealand producers should have to pay so much more by steamer than by sailer ?—I think it is probably right if the expenses of carrying by a steamer are heavier than by a sailer ; because the steamer makes, you may say, two voyages to the sailer's one. It is virtually being able to carry the freight so much more readily that they are driving the sailers out of the market. But that is a question departing from my own business. It is a question Mr. Burnes might have been asked. 160. You have said that you are not aware of any of these commissions being returned by agents to growers ?—I do not know what was the practice in years gone by ; that is the practice of recent years. 161. Are you prepared absolutely to state that ?—I am prepared absolutely to stats that I know of no single instance except those that I mentioned on Tuesday. 162. .Directly or indirectly ?—Both. 163. Do you remember a case as between the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company and Nelson Brothers, tried before the Supreme Court in London, in which it was proved that, contrary to agreement, frozen-meat companies in the Colony of New Zealand were placed at a serious disadvantage as regards freights compared with Nelson Brothers ? Do you remenjber the case lam alluding to —say, three or four years ago ? Nelson Brothers sued the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, and what I have been stating came out in evidence before the Supreme Court. The statement was that Nelson Brothers had been enjoying a differential freight on meat from the shipping company, while frozen-meat companies had been enjoying no such rate?— There was an arrangement between Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company for their shipping, in combination with Nelson Brothers, and the rate of freight was to depend upon the outcome in London. But lam not aware that if a frozen-meat company such as your own had desired to work on the same iooting they would have been debarred from doing so. But, of course, these are matters outside my province. Ido know something, however, about those things, and that is the impression I had. I am under the impression that Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, if the Gear Company or Wellington Meat Export Company desired to enter into a similar arrangement as Nelson Brothers' — that is, an arrangement by which the freight was to depend upon the outcome of meat in London—l do not know that Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company would have had any objection to grant a similar concession. The Tyser Company were acting similarly. 164. Are you not aware that the agents of the shipping companies out here, when challenged with what was disclosed, pleaded that they were not to blame, because this was done without their knowledge by the London office—the agents generally in New Zealand ?—-Do you refer to the New Zealand Shipping Company ? 165. Are you not aware that the shipping companies, through their local agents throughout New Zealand, pleaded their ignorance of this during the time that they assured the growers here that they were getting the lowest current rate obtainable by anybody ?—lt is not a matter that has come under my special cognisance that they made any special plea, because some of them must have known that Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company and Nelson Brothers were working together, but I am not familiar with the facts. 166. I wish to get an application of this point locally, with regard to the return of commission to some growers, and the question I am going to ask is this : May it not be that some growers get this return commission from their agents without your knowledge ; return commissions on freight; as was the case in the instance I have named—in the case of Nelson Brothers and the Shaw Savill and Albion Company ?—You are practically asking me do I think that certain agents are base enough to enter into a distinct agreement with the four shipping companies and deliberately