GIGANTIC CONSPIRACY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 11, 23 December 1911, Page 5

GIGANTIC CONSPIRACY.

COAL VEND CASE JUDGMENT

CONCLUDED

HUGE TOTAL OF FINES

Sydney, December 22. Judge Isaacs concluded the delivery of the coal vend judgment. He convicted all thirty-nine defendants of the several offences charged against them, and ordered each to pay a fine of £SOO, with the exception of the Associated Northern Colliery, because its individual members were amongst tiiose fined. He. granted an injunction restraining defendants' from a repetition or continuance ef the several offences whereof they were convicted, and ordered defendants to pay plaintiffs’ costs. On, the application of the colliery proprietors he granted a stay of proceedings in connection with the penalties pending the hearing of an appeal. In the course of his summing up, Judge Isaacs referred to the combination as a “gigantic conspiracy.-’ It was, he slid, difficult to say how much the public were overcharged for coal, but the figures indicated that tiio total improperly gathered in ’ v the united efforts of the colliery and shipping companies reached a very high figure. Besides a detriment to the public’ in regard to price, there wa§ a restriction in the choice ot coal. Tiio vend and shipping companion looked to the advantage"of no one but them own.iy*.This they followed up wherever they'j could and to the greatest possible^distance. Defendants gathered'to themselves a giant’s strength, anduised it as a giant not only against the public but on all who stood nr endeavoured to stand between them and the public. The fines imposed, which were the statutory limit, total £19,500.