Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5633, 5 December 1879, Page 4

We have heard a great deal of American "rings"—wheat rings, whisky ring.-, steamboat rings, land rings—'jut, it appea-s that the institution is becoming naturalised on English soil, aud promises a rich harvest to its introducers, who have improved upon the lessons of their American teachers. Uis a very wrong thing for Labour to endeavour to artiticially raise the price of that article or to regulate the powers of production to the consumption of a close market, and tj institute a moral terrorism over tli se wh) disapprove of such practices; hat it i 3 perfectly legitimate for merchant princes to enter into combinations wliich shall give Capital those advantages there, from that would be dunie I to Labour. At least that is the moral drawn from the defence te 1 ; up in some English journals for a steamboat ring which has rec.ntly bten farmed at home, to regulate the rates ft freight and the number of ships which sha'l sail to the Kast, in tha trade with China, Japan, and the otliercountries lying to the eastward of the Suez Canal. Auiosg th-; firms stated to be concern 1 , d ill the holy a.'iliano-- are the P. nmsuU and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. the Mcssageri-s, Maritimes de France, the Ocean Company, and a number of the largeit steamship owners in the world It appears that tiuling a difficulty in tilling taiir ships with freight and that shippers eetticij the benetit of close cotup-titiou, they formcl a ring and agreed to restrict the numbtr of vessels on tin ba\h between the • ::aiu-:-a and the far with the o'tject . i n,aintaiuinir freights at a uniform tig-n . and neutralising cmpetii-u 'J he L'■ r/ v j> Courl'-r gives the following extrac". ■ut of the articles of agreement, and it the -■ rt ui tlrng disclose 1 in these articles were ioue by workmen it would probably ho ie_-r ltd as conspiracy and dealt with as such. It runs thus:—"l.)n behalf of their own line, each of us undertakes, with bhipi) r.-i of goods trorn England and Japan, and i\cversa, to make a return ti each tirm at the end of the half-year 011 freights contributed by it during the previous halt-year, as per scale annexed, tho clainiaut not havniy b-.tu interested in the cours.' of the twelve months in any shipment by other conveyance than those de-patched by us to China and Japan, or loaded by our agents in China and Japan.'' It will be seen that the " ring" is a ecucentric one, an-1 that other parties gel a bonus out of tho transaction for serves rendered. This little arrangement only applies at present to the China an 1 Japan trade principally, but there is nothing to prevent tho same combination bsin.s attempted as regards the Australasian tra le. The transaction is regarded as defensible in some circle?, because done by weal'hv monopolists, but the " litis " is drum, at Broadheali.'m.