SUGAR COMMISSION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 105, 3 May 1912, Page 7

SUGAR COMMISSION.

REFINERY COMPANY DIRECTORS DO NOT ATTEND. COVERT DEFIANCE OF AUTHORITY »Jjr Telegraph.- Press Association.— Copyright. SYDNEY, 2nd May. A serious situation has arisen in connection with the Sugar Commission. Mr. Knox and other directors of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company failed to attend to-day's sitting. The Hon. H. E. Kater, M.L.C., chairman of directors, forwarded a letter stating that Mr. Knox, as manager, knew all that he and the other directors knew, and the directors had decided that he should represent them. Mr. Knox wrote a long letter in which he declared that as he had not been supplied with a copy of the evidence, as promised" by tho Commission, he was* unable te rebut statements which were untrue. " Therefore I cannot submit myself for examination and cross-exami-nwtiou." Mr. Justice Gordon, chairman of the Commission, declared that he did not know of any right of the company to dictate who should give evidence. Dealing with Mr. Knox's letter, he stated that the excuse offered seemed very like a shuffle. Regarding the statement that the Commission had promised to supply a copy of the evidence, his Honour said : "I characterise that statement as a deliberate lie. I only said we would not object to our reporter supplying a capy if it did not interfere with his work. The reporter found it did interfere." The chairman mentioned that the company had two shorthand writers present at all meetings of the Commission. Mr. Knox's •excuse was not genuine; it was •a deliberate, if covert, defiance of the authority of the Commission. The Commission had met with little success so far aa any revelations of the company's affairs were concerned. None of the officials at the mills knew whether they were working at a profit or a lose. A muffled secrecy pervaded the whole arena of tho company h service. He would not take upon himself the responsibility of authorising the prowjcution of these gen tlemen for not atte tiding, bub would leave it to the Federal Government to decide. The Comitnifision has adjourned for a week. [In yesterday's cable message it was stwted "that the Colonial Sugar Refining Company's profits from the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane refineries worked out at £15 11s OAd net per ton of raw sugar treated. The sum should have been 15s ll£d por ton.]