THE TAKING OF " COMMISSIONS."
[To rnia Roma or Ina " Greeraroa."]
Sta,—While cordially agreeing with the sentiments of the article on this subject in your issue of March 19th, permit me to point out, in justice to the defendants, Messrs. Barber and Marsden, that your statements as to their conduct in the trans- actions are in some respects inexact.
You wrote :—" Some little time ago, a Syndicate was formed with the intention of hiring the ' Great Eastern' from the Com- pany for a year," &a If this were true, that the Syndicate was formed before terms with the Great Eastern' Company had been arranged, and the Directors knew of the formation of such a Company with a definite object, what reasons could they have had, as you allege, for bribing Brown to induce, him to get his Syndicate to hire the vessel ? Surely, the Company being formed with the object of hiring the' Great Eastern,' and with no other object, the Directors would have no need to bribe any one, when their acceptance or refusal of any proposals would make or mar the success of the Syndicate's plans.
The simple facts of the case are that Brown, as a ship-broker, went to the Secretary of the ' Great Eastern' Company, and said:—"'If your Directors are willing to accept a charter for the Great Eastern,' I think I can find satisfactory charterers ; but I shall have a good deal of trouble, and shall have to go to considerable expense. You must give me more than an ordinary broker's commissionand thus the terms were arranged. No doubt you are right in what you say,—viz., that " a warning was urgently needed to check the growth of the bribery of agents by means of commissions.' " But in the desire to find a victim, these two old gentlemen of blameless reputation have been offered up ; and it is greatly to be feared that the sentence passed by Baron Pollock will prove to be a sentence of death.—
[Our account of the Syndicate's doings was drawn from a statement of the facts of the case that appeared in the Standard of litaroh.14th. Accepting, however, our correspondent's state- meat, can. it be said that Mr. Barber and Mr. Marsden were blameless ? Even on his showing, they virtually bribed Mr. Brown to promote a Syndicate which should deal with their Company on unfair and concealed terms.—En. Spectator.]
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