H.—44a

2

(4.) Whether the price for cement of New Zealand manufacture was directly or indirectly determined, controlled, or influenced by the parties to the agreement in such manner as to make the price unreasonably high. (5.) Whether the said agreement has in any manner operated detrimentally to the public interest. (6.) Whether the Board of Trade, being aware of such agreement, was lacking in any duty in taking no action with respect to such agreement. And you are hereby authorized to conduct any inquiries under these presents at such times and places as you deem expedient, with power to adjourn from time to time and place to place as you think fit, and to call before you and examine on oath or otherwise such persons as you think capable of affording you information as to the matters aforesaid, and to call for and examine all such documents as you deem likely to afford you information on any such matters. And, using all diligence, you are required to report to me under your hand and seal not later than the eleventh day of November, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, your opinion as to the aforesaid matters. And you are hereby strictly charged and directed that you shall not at any time publish or otherwise disclose, save to me in pursuance of these presents or by my direction, the contents or purport of any report so made or to be made by you. And it is hereby declared that these presents shall continue in full force and virtue although the inquiry is not regularly continued from time to time or from place to place by adjournment. And, lastly, it is hereby further declared that these presents are issued under and subject to'the provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1908. Given under the hand of His Excellency the Right Honourable John Rushworth, Viscount Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight Grand [Seal oe the Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Governor-General Dominion of New and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Zealand.] Dominion of New Zealand and its Dependencies ; and issued under the Seal of the said Dominion at the Government House at Wellington this fourteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one. W. F. Massey, Issued in Executive Council. Prime Minister. F. D. Thomson, Clerk of the Executive Council. SCHEDULE. An agreement made between the Golden Bay Cement Company (Limited) of the one part, Wilson's (New Zealand) Cement Company (Limited) of the second part, and the Milburn Lime and Cement Company (Limited) of the third part: Whereas the contracting parties are of opinion that the demand for cement in New Zealand is likely for some months to be considerably less than the supplies which are at present being manufactured by the contracting parties: And whereas the contracting parties desire to enter into an arrangement whereby the said parties may derive the most satisfactory results possible, and for this purpose have agreed to enter into this agreement: Now, this agreement witnesseth as follows : — 1. The Golden Bay Company shall close down the manufacture of its cement on the fourteenth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, or as near thereto as is possible, in order to clear out its present stock of clinker. 2. The Golden Bay Company shall have a period of one month from the above date to sell the stock of cement which may be at its works or in the hands of its agents.