THE NEWCASTLE COAL VEND

West Coast Times, 20 April 1911, Page 4

THE NEWCASTLE COAL VEND

ITS FORMATION AND TRAN SAC- j TIONS. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION—JOPOtIairr.'i I SYDNEY, April 19. j Counsel for the Crown, in continuing his opening' address in the Newcastle Coal I Vend cases, adduced further lengthy J arguments in support o£ his contention , that the prices fixed by the A'end were exeessive and that they cut prices in order, t ocrush certain firms outside the vend. He claimed that the practice of the combine was .to arrange that one person ; should get » contract and others put in , bogus tenders. He quoted figures to show that since the alleged combine was formed ; there had been an excessive rise in price i through its acttom- ] Counsel declared that in 1907 ah agree- | ment was come Ur between the colliery proprietors and tba Union Company of much the same nature as that between the colliery proprietors. This agreed to give a monopoly of fare' carrying trade between Newcastle, Tasmania end New Zealand to the Union, Company with cer-' tain exceptions. The Crown alleged that there was an implied term of agree ment that the InterState steamship prop nietors should keep out of the New Zeala rod-Tasmanian trade 1 and that the Union Comnpany should I keep out of the coastal , trade. The trutn | of .that implied term wr s largely a mattci | of inference from a let lei'- r i