CLAIM FOR £20,000,000.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15201, 15 January 1913, Page 7

CLAIM FOR £20,000,000.

TELEPHONE COMPANY AND

GOVERNMENT.

COMPANY TO GET £12,515,000.

By Telegraph.— Association.— London, , January 13. In the telephone arbitration case between the Government and the National Telephone Company the latter has been awarded the sum of £12,515,000. The judges ascertained the cost of construction and plant and then deducted a sum for depreciation. BIG ARBITRATION CASE. The claim of the . National Telephone Company to a sum of over 20 millions sterling (£20,924,700 . was the exact amount), for the sale of its business to the Postmaster-General (the hearing of which commenced nearly eight months ago), is stated to be one of the largest claims that has ever come before a Court of Arbitration in any one case. Sir A. Cripps, K.C. (who represented the company), stated in his opening speech that whilst in 1894 tho net income of the company was £279,000, in 1911 it was £1,229,000. The gross income between those dates had increased from £738,000 to £3,685,000. At the time the company's undertaking was taken over, at tho end of 1911, the company had a ? gross income of £3,685,000, and" employed upwards of 13,000 persons. The mam point between the company and the Postmaster-General was what'should be excluded from the total as "spare" plant or plant "not in use " on December 31, 1911.