CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19443, 31 October 1925, Page 11

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

ALLEGED BROKEN CONTRACT ECHO OF THE WAR LONDON, Oct. 29. Air J. H. Cunliffe, Sir A. Lister, Sir Alan Smith, and Air P. J. Hannan. M.P., respectively vice-chairman, chairman, and general secretary of the British Commonwealth Union at the end of the war, are figuring as defendants in a High Court suit for damages and alleged breach of contract brought by Captain Harold Duncan. Plantiff’s counsel said that at the end of the war Captain Duncan submitted a scheme to defendants for the restoration of . British trade • aboard, which was in a badly crippled condition. The scheme was that the Government should guarantee British exporters wholly or partly against loss in respect of supplying foreign customers. Captain Duncan disclosed his scheme to the British Commonwealth Union, which agreed that he should become a member of the union and have a financial interest in all big schemes carried out. The capital required ran into thousands of millions sterling. Counsel alleged that Air Cunliffe, Sir A. Lister, and Sir Alan Smith broke the contract by handing the scheme to the Government and concealing this from Duncan, and placing obstacles in the way of his communicating the facts to the then President of the Board of Trade, Sir Steel Maitland.

Defendants plead that no contracts as mentioned were made.