CO885-24 — Page 339

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

། ། ། ། ། ། mmimmin C.O. 885

24 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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28 December 1912.]

OVERSEA PRIZE DISPOSAL COMMITTEE:

Mr. W. RICHARDS And Mr. A. HuонES.

two ships. I think we might as well leave that. We will try and get the Birkenfels" fixed up as soon as possible P-(Mr. Hughes.) Yes. If you are absolutely certain that you are going to do that I have a man here whom I have taken out of one of the steamers, and I will send him out on Saturday, whether you come to a decision or whether you do not, because he will be under way then. I will warn him to-night or to-morrow morning that I think I will send him out Without there. He is one of the very old musters. absolutely settling it by next Saturday I would send him out on spec and then he would be under way.

678. Of course, it will not really expedite matters very much because you would have to send out an engineer and chief officer ?--I think it would expedite matters a little bit because he would look after things; he would be on the spot. He is doing nothing.

679. Now to go to quite another point: you have made some proposal about the Australia "P-Yes. I should like to buy the "Australia."

680. Of course, we have got a time for the tenders to be in. There are several companies which have been asked to touder for her?-I do not know whether I have been asked to tender or not.

681. Yes-The Government at present are pressing us for all our refrigerator tonnage. The Government have taken away our refrigerator tonnage. I under- stand, with regard to the ship I am going to send out next week to the Continent, they are going to keep her out. I would buy a ship and give you an undertaking that I would immediately refrigerate her. I have the machines. We have nine steaners building, and three or four machines, and I could put one in.

682. I do not doubt it for a moment, but I can give you no answer until I have had the tenders in Do you want a tender from me?

(Chairman.) Yes, please; and the tenders are to be in on Wednesday.

683. (Mr. Wiseman.) At noon on the 30th P-I understand.

684. (Chairman.) The tenders will be opened at noon on Wednesday and then we shall be able to decide If your tender is at our meeting on Thursday. accepted you will have the ship at once?-Of course I do not know whether the tenderers have any more information about the ship than I have. I only looked her up in Lloyd's book.

(Chairman) We have given you all the information in the letter-all the information we have got.

(Mr. Tennyson.) Some of the firms have inspected her locally too.

685. (Mr. Wiseman.) I said in my letter that if any. body wanted to inspect her they could?-Mr. Hughes.) At Colombo?

[Continued.

689. Oh, no; we have committed ourselves?-It is very important, you must remember, that there should be some refrigerator tonnage.

690. I am quite aware of that, but we have committed ourselves to a certain line of action. We have put these ships up to tender. There are two put up, the Furth" and the "Australia"; and although we have said that we do not hold ourselves bound to accept any tender that is sent in, still I must look at If the tenders before I can give anybody any answer. somebody offers me 100,0002. for her, and you only offer 50,0001. 1 am not going to take your P-I may You have no idea offer you some other consideration. how much this refrigerator tonnage is wanted. It is not every steamer which lends itself to refrigerators:

I would not want, it wants big boiler power and so on.

to refrigerate the" Birkenfels," for instance. She would be no good to me at all. She would refrigerate but she would not be suitable; but these ships are suitable. What about the "Sumatra "P

691. (Mr. Tennyson.) I think she has been taken up by the Australian Government, probably for that purpose --I think our people are loading her home. You have to deal with her she interned ? afterwards?

Is

(Mr. Tennyson.) Yes.

(Chairman.) She is only detained,

692. (Mr. Tennyson.) I do not know whether the Government have taken her over for a term or only for the voyage?-My firm are loading three of them for them.

693. (Chairman.) I hope you are bringing wool? -There is no shortage of wool steamers. There was a shortage at the beginning of December for quite a short time because the steamers that would have beeu there about that time were all stopped, for instance, all our New York steumers. We did not do any business in New York, I suppose, for something like four or five weeks after the war, so everything was stopped. The steamers that ought to have arrived there in November did not arrive till the middle of December. Everything was a month late and we had a stoppage here in London. For a long time after the declaration of war we did not do any business at all. The merchants did not ship; there was no finance to ship anything, and everything was a month late just at that point, but that is all more than caught up. There is plenty of tonnage bringing home wool; in fect there is a good deal more tonnage than there is wool.

694. If you will let me have the revised figures we will let you know on Thursday about the" Australia"? -Yen. Well, I will give an undertaking with regard to the Australia "that I will fit her for a certain number of tons of meat, and bring her over here immediately. and I will use one of the machines which I have paid for. We are building some steamers with turbine machinery, and they hare taken all our turbine men right away. Those are the very men they want. The witnesses withdrew.

686. (Mr. Tennyson.) Yes?---She is still at Colombo ? 687. Yes! You would not be prepared to negotiate with me privately?

688. (Chairman.) I cannot now ?—I do not see why not, but still ———

Mr. HENRY GREY KELLOCK attended.

695. (Chairman.) You have come here at the request of the Admiralty marshal P-Yes. There has been a request to see certain documents which he is having drawn subject to the Board of Trade solicitor anl council; and what he particularly wanted you to se was this form of mortgage and the conditions of sale which have been slightly altered just in one place by the solicitor to the Board of Trade. (The witness produced various documents.)

696, (Mr. Roper.) Have these been issued to the public -Yes, but not in that form. I have an appoint- ment with Sir Ellis Cunliffe to-morrow morning. He wants some further alterations made in this form of bond, but this is the form in which they have gone out to the public. (Handing document to Mr. Roper.)

697. (Mr. Evans.) Have you a copy of that P-Not with me, but you shall have as many copies as you like. I will send you some. There is one thing I would like to explain. Though these conditions of sale may have

gone to the public, they go to the public as a sort of favour to let them get the line of country as to what is to be done; we are not bound by any conditions issued till I get into the box and then read out; so we can alter thom sa much as we like, though it is not advisable to do it. I have brought a copy of the mortgage with me now from the marshal, and several copies of the addendum which he said he had bee. naked for. This

is the bond (handing the same to the Chairman) that is going before Sir Ellis Cunliffe to-morrow morning; he wants to make some little addition or alteration to that. but that really does not matter because that is only being exhibited when it is asked for. Those are the two declarations for the individual and the corporation (handing the same to the Chairman). This is the form of mortgage. This is an ordinary account current form with the body filled in, as set out by The usual counsel; and then there is his addendum thing in a commercial mortgage is to have this filled

28 December 1914.]

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mr. H. GREY KELLOCK.

in. This is simply an instrument to enable you to register at the Custom House. Then we always have an accompanying agreement as to insurance and so forth, and counsel considered that for this purpose this addition to the body plus this would cover the whole ground. The marshal asked me to bring two of these copies. It appears he has been asked for several copies of this addendum. If you want any inore of the forms of mortgage, if you will let me know We have not had them I will have some made out. printed because the expense of printing is consider- able, and we may not have a great many mortgages to make out.

698. (Chairman.) Do you think most people will pay right out P-No, I do not. There are six steamers advertised at the present moment, that is all, and after consultation with the marshal we thought it was waste of money to print them.

699. But you will have a lot more?-Yea, but I am quite prepared to make them all up. It is not always very easy. The authorities are not very paticular about letting you have too many of these mortgage forms at once, and if we took this to our own printer and had it printed we could not put certain marks on to it and it might be thrown out, whereas a document such as this is filled in. It is only a little bit of clerical work.

700, And it is all valid ?—Yes, perfectly valid. 701. When are you going to sell these vessels ?— On the 5th.

702. What are the ships ?-The "Schlesien," the Ella Boog," the" Marie Glaser," the Franz Horn," and the Nauta."

703. (Mfr. Evans.) Is the Schlesien" the vessel you are going to inspect ?--Yes, I am going to see the Schlesien "to-morrow morning. She is at Plymonth. 704. (Chairman.) Those are all very useful ships?— Yes; they are very useful, all of them; and if they are all in the same order as the " Marie Gläser" is in they are wonderful. I an not an engineer, but I know some- thing about ships, and I have never seen a vessel of her age in such good condition. She can go to sea in ten minutes. She has coals on board her and provisions provided that the English crew would eat the food, it is there-and au outfit such as you never saw in your life. She has just come out of Newport, where, to use an Admiralty expression, she has had a refit, and a proper refit at that. You never saw such a thing.

705. I suppose we shall have a claim for the money spent upon her; that is sure to come along ?-Hand it over to me, I will deal with that.

706. When does the marshal intend to put up the others; because there are a lot of others -I have five sailing vessels on the 14th, nit I am rather put out about that. An Order in Council has came out and I am afraid it is going to humling our market a bit.

707. I do not know whether that Order in Council was drafted for that purpose, it was only intended for steamers ?-It says "craft." I suppose a craft is a jolly boat as much as a steamer.

708. It was only intended for steamers -1 have

It only seen it in the newspapers.

wus in the

·Shipping Gazette."

700. We must ask about that, because it will inter- fere with sailing ships very much indeed!--Very much indeed. Britishers are not buying sailing ships.

710. I know. It is all the Swedes?-They will all go to the Sweden.

711. You had better tell the Admiralty marshal that he must enquire about that, and if he is going to sell those ships in order to get a market for them he will have to sell them with a permit to export ?--Yes. 1 understand it is up to the buyer to get the permit.

712. Yes, but if it is up to the buyer to get the permit you will not get any bids ?--You might or might not. I have just had the sale of a steamer upset through this very thing. I sold a ship, she is Belgian- owned really, but it is an English company, and she was sold to the Norwegians. Everything was signed sealed and delivered and completed at the end of last week at a very good price, and I cannot get transfer.

713-4. Anyhow, the marshal had better see about this, and I think the only real way of dealing with

25440-Ev 1 &

[Continued.

33

them in order to get a proper market is to sell them with a permit to export?—Yes. If we could advertise that we would provide the permit to export, if would make all the difference in the world.

715. I know that the intention was to limit this to steamships. I think it is well worth your inquiring into P -I will telephone down to my manager to send down to the Custom House the first thing to-morrow morning to find out exactly what is wanted and how it is wanted. and I expect to be in a position to tell the marshal something to-morrow morning.

716. If you are not going to sell before the 14th you have plenty of time?-Yes, we have plenty of time.

717. I think that you will have to see about that? -Yes, I will see about it.

718. After that what have you got coming on?-W have nothing fixed. So many of these sailing vessels particularly are not yet discharged. We have two vessels in Liverpool discharging at the present moment. My own people are looking after them for the marshal and seeing to the discharge, and all that sort of thing and the first of them will not be ready until the 8th or 9th of January. She has been in Liverpool for s month or more now. That is why the sale is coming I made it the 14th because all the un on the 14th. Liverpool sailing-ship owners, in fact from all over the country come up on certain Wednesdays to London to attend Sailing Ship Club, and they will all be here on the 13th. I am going to let them have their club meetings on Wednesday in the hope that they will stop over for the sale on Thursday.

719. There are several more steamers coming on, are there not ?-Yes, but the commissions are not through yet. There are only six steamers positively dealt with, up to date, and they are all advertised now. As many mailing vessels as possible have been adver- tised those that are ready. One of the objects of my call this afternoon was to ask if there was any chance of any of these interned ships being made use of. Would it be any use for a shipowner to come to you to discuss some sort of proposition as to the working of them.

720. Yes? Of course, we have abnormal freights at the present minute. A vessel of 6,000 or 7,000 tons cargo capacity could make to-day at the rate of some. thing like 28,0001, a year. The tonnage is wanted particularly eastwards. We had a call from one of London's cleverest shipowners that is what I call him one day last week to ask about this matter. Of course, I had nothing to do but refer it to the marshal, and he suggested that I should get into communication with Mr. Wiseman, which I did. Hence I am troubling you this afternoon.

721. As far as things have gone at the present moment we have suggested to the Government that we should let these ships out, but we have no authority? ---Your suggestion is an extremely wise one, bxcause as an old sailor you know better than I do how a ship goes to pieces when she is laid up. Even in the short Time the Marie Gleser" has been lying, when I saw her in October she was beginning to look very dirty and dusty and dishevelled.

722. We shall be very pleased to have any propositions if your friend likes to communicate with Mr. Wiseman? If Mr. Wiseman will permit it 1 will try to make an appointment to bring him up here and We have Bee Mr. Wiseman and talk the thing over.

two applications, one comes from London and the other from Liverpool. The people in London-there is no secret about it—are Lawther, Latta and Company.

(fr. Wiseman.) I have seen them to-day, an a matter of fact.

723. Mr. Laita called here to-day P-I did not see him myself but my brother did, and he asked if w would go to work and find out how things were and whom to go to. 1 promptly went to the marshal and I therefore he said Mr. Wiseman is the man." proposed to make an appointment for Mr. Latta to sew him.

(Mr. Wiseman.) He has seen me, and I said it was a matter for this Committee to decide.

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