COMMERCIAL CORRUPTION IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1264, 21 May 1896, Page 11

COMMERCIAL CORRUPTION IN ENGLAND.

The summing up of the Lord Chief Justice in a recent case (writes a correspondent of the Westminster Gazette ) is another decided help towards raising the standard of conscientiousness in limited liability companies. The iniquities perpetrated in them, and through them, are far more reaching than is generally supposed ; and your readers will hardly believe to what extent bribery and corruption exist now in nearly all departments of commercial life. I give you some examples of what has come under my own notice, or under the notice of those whose assuranco to me is quite reliable. 1, I have seen a Government tender for certain articles come to a personal friend a fow days before the tenders were to be opened. I remarked how unfair it was to receive such short notice, and recommended him to remonstrate. He

simply said it was all a matter of arrange-ment--“My opponents arc to get this contract, and t will get the next 1 ' Is that how Government tenders are generally arranged ?

11. I tried to obtain a contract cnce from a local district surveyor, but did not succeed. met accidentally another gentleman who also applied for the same contract, and ho told me I never would succeed. “ I suppose,” I said, “ that you manage to get earlier information than I can ?"—“ Not that,” he replied ;“it is I who send word to the surveyor that I want a job, and he goes through the form of issuing the tender ; but 1 know the job will always come to me." 111. Lately, friends of mine obtained a repairing contract for roads in or near London, but they could make no progress on account of the oodlesi little obstacles put in their way. They gave the fo.-c----niau a £‘s note for—it is difficult to say what ; but the obstacles vanished, and the work was done in half the usual time. IV. Another road contract was promised in another suburb of London. 'The foreman horealso asked fora £'s note, and got it. Ilis mate asked them for the same amount, and was told to go to ! He didn’t go ; but my friend lost the contract for not giving the £5 note along with the advice 1

V. 'The coal trade is quite notorious for the facilities it affords for bribery and corruption, especially in shipping. I know large firms which will sup] ly thousands of tons of coal for loss than they cost, and large steam companies w hich refuse to buy their coals from other agents at less than they have been paying for years !

Such generosity seems unnatural to the unsophisticated ; but the explanation is, that where coals are sold for less than they Cost, the purchasers only get fifteen or sixteen hundredweight to the ton, and the engineer gets a present to himself for certifying that he has received the full qua tit ity. 1 have known an engineer receive a £5 note from a coaling agent, and innocently ask his employers what it could be for ! 'The employers bravely told him it was for favours to cmne 1

VI. I have known of a famous civil engineer who gave a contract to a friend of mine, and manfully refused to accept the offered remuneration of £"2000 ! But ho gently suggested that the money might be invested in Consols and sent to iiis wife as a surprise. 'That man is now dead—but lie lias left many successors.