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OVERSEA PRIZE DISPOSAL COMMITTEE:

Wednesday, 13th January 1915.

Evidence taken at the Seventeenth Meeting.

MEMBERS PRESENT:

VICE ADMIRAL SIE EDMOND J. W. SLADE, K.C.I.E., K.C.V.O. (in the Chair).

Mr. G. L. BARSTOW, C.B.

Mr. H. W. MALKIN.

Mr. W. J. EVANS.

Mr. T. H. HOLT.

Mr. G. ROPER. Mr. G. TENNYSON C.M.G. Mr. L. D. WAKELY.

Mr. E. R. Newbigin was also present during the meeting.

The following gentlemen attended before the Committee:-

Mr. J. G. BELL, Hammersmith Borough Council. Mr. C. O. GRIMSHAW, Westminster Electric Supply

Corporation.

Mr. F. LOCKETT and Mr. G. C. LOCKETT, Gardner,

Lockett, and Hinton, Limited.

Mr. JOHN CHARBINGTON, Charrington, Sells, Dale,

& Co.

Mr. ALFRED CHURCHILL, County of London

Electric Supply Company.

(Chairman.) Well, gentlemen, I have asked you to come up here again because I thought you would like to know what steps we have taken to try to get over these difficulties. We have now the Treasury sanction for a scheme which has been put forward by which we intend to bring into work the detained German and Austrian steamships which are round the coast of England. They amount to between 30 and 34. I think. I cannot give you the actual number at the present moment because we do not know whether they are all quite suitable for the work that we want them to do. These ships will be requisitioned by the Admiralty, and will be run by the Government for use in the consting trade, giving preference, of course, obviously to the coal trade to London. I hope in this way that we may be able to put into London from 30,000 to 40,000 tons a week extra beyond what is now coming in. and it will very much depend upon you, 'gentlemen, if we can get more in, because to a great extent it depends upon the rapidity with which the shipa can be turned round. Of course, there are always delays and must be delays on the voyage down owing to the difficulties of mines, and one thing and another like that. But still we will try and get them through as fast as we can so as to give you as great a measure of relief as is possible. The ships will be offered on the Newcastle Exchange in the same way We that the ordinary coaling trade is now carried on. want to adhere as closely as possible to the ordinary conditions of trade so as to make use of every possible organisation that there is for keeping things going rapidly. We do not wish to introduce new methods into the trade. Messrs. Witherington and Everitt and Mr. Newbigin have been selected by the Government as managers for these ships, and an office has been opened in Newcastle for dealing with the business. We have to remember that London is not the only place which has to be supplied, although London is the chief place, and we have to work in as we can the requirements of, at any inte, some of the principal South Coast towns. The towns on the East Coast and North Coast can look after themselves. It is the South Coast which is the difficulty; so that I hope you will not be alarmed if you see occasionally ships are taken away and have to do a trip to some of the South Const ports.

Of course, we cannot help there being a certain amount of competition in the arrangements for chartering these ships. We tried to work it out in several ways to get over the difficulty of competition, and try and allocate the ships to the various interests

Mr. R. A. WISEMAN (Secretary),

Mr. W. HARDMAN, Harris, Hardman & Co. Mr. J. W, BURNETT, Burnett Steamship Company. Mr. J. ROBERTSON, John Hudson & Co., Limited." Mr. F. J. SKIVINGTON, Alfred Blackmore & Co. Mr. D. M. WATSON, Gas Light and Coke Company. Mr. HAMILTON GREIG, William Cory and Sons. Mr. SYDNEY SHOURRIDGE, South Suburban Gas

Company.

Mr. J. H. GILL, John Gill and Son, Limited. Mr. STANLEY JONES, Commercial Gas Company. Mr. FREDERICK MCLEOD, South Metropolitan Gas

Company.

without competition, but we came to the conclusion that it was quite impossible. There are not enough ships to go round, and we must leave you gentlemen to settle it among yourselves. But we will try and meet you fairly, and we will try and see that all legitimate interests are satisfied as fully as possible. I only wish we could give you more ships, and I hope perhaps in the future, when we get some more ships home, we may be able to put more on this particular run, but at the present moment it is quite impossible. We are giving you everything that we can lay our hands upon, and I do not think I can say more than

that.

If any gentleman has any questions to ask or points to raise I shall be very glad if he will do so.

(Mr. Watson.) May I be allowed to say-of course, I am talking for myself alone-it is a disappointment that there is going to be competition for these boats. I do not know whether you are aware that 13. 3d. has been paid to-day?

(Chairman.) I am quite aware of it.

(Mr. Watson.) That is almost as bad as having no boats at all; and it seems to me that, working it out, if these ships are going to be competed for on anything like present market lines, we are in for a very serious state of things indeed. When you consider that every shilling paid in freight means one penny on the price of gas, and the normal freight is 3., you are face to face with a condition of things which means 10d. up in the price of gas. That entirely and absolutely is the result of the war. It seems to me that surely the Government can prevent a state of things of that kind. It is hardly necessary to remind you that they have stepped in and regulated the prices of food and other things. The price of gas is just as important as the price of food to the poor. There is no use in keeping down the price of food if the penny-in-the-slot price. which supplies upwards of a million families in London, and perhaps more, is going to be put up at anything like that ratio. It is not the gas company who is suffering, but the consumer of gas and the poor, who are the bulk of the consumers of gas. That, I think, is a point well worthy your consideration as to whether there should not be some general rate on these boats, that free competition should not be allowed.

(Chairman.) If I may interrupt you, do you not think we had better wait and see what the effect of putting all this extra tonnage on the freight market is. We have been advised that it will very materially ease the situation, and that the mere fact of this extra tonnage being available will bring the freights down at

13 January 1915.]

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mr. J. G. BALL and 14 Others.

We can see how once at any rate, a certain amount. far it is going to take effect, and then, if necessary, reconsider our position. Of course, although we are starting this business now, we are not bound to continue it exactly on the same lines that we begin it on. I do not say that that would be a proper thing to do. As the thing goes on you will see how it is going to work out, and then we can again consider how we can better it; but I do not want to shut the duor entirely. At the same time, I am speiking now er tirely with the sanction of the President of the Board of Trade, because I discussed the matter with him; at the present moment I do not see any way of legitimately allocating these boats, or fairly allocating these boats, except by public competition. It is the most difficult thing in the world, if you have only got 10d. to give away, and have twelve people asking for it, to divide it out fairly among the lot. That is the difficulty.

(Mr. Watson.) It is a difßenlt point, undoubtedly. Thank you, sir. Of course, that is helpful, that it might be reconsidered, but there are one or two other points. May I mention them?

(Chairman.) Yes, I want your assistance.

(Mr. Watson.) I suppose thess boats will be strictly limited to certain trade: I mean there will be no

The chance of their being diverted to another trade. only people who will be entitled to compete for thoon boats will be those engaged in the public services or their contractors?

(Chairman.) The sanction of the Government is for these bouts to be put into the home coasting trade, and the intention is that these boats shall be entirely confined to the coal trade as far as it goes.

When you come to try and define what are public services, in such a matter as coal it is a little difficult.

(Mr. Watson) But, of course, it is very important, because there might easily be someone, a builder or contractor, who is anxious to get on with his building work. He would naturally regard his building as of the utmost importance to himself, and he might want coal to get on with. But in our humble opinion it is not so important as water, light, heat, and the various things which are absolutely public services; and 1 should have thought it would have been very easy for the Government to bave made it quite clear to the gentlemen to whom they have entrusted this, that there must be some declaration or destination and use to which this coal is going to be put at the other end.

(Chairman.) Yes, but if you take the coal trade of London there are very few businesses, I should think, which would not come under the designation, as I understand you mean, of public services.

(Mr. Watson.) Well, I should think there are a good many. One does not want to put one claim against another, but take the household coal trade which might come in by rail, but a great deal of it does come in by sea. If a merchant in Londou thought he could got hold of it and get it by sea at a cheap rate it would pay him. Now that is not perhaps quite so necessary. He has got the alternative of his rail-borne coal, and his rail-borne contract, whereas many of us have only That is a the possibility of getting any coal by sea.

cans that I take. But further on that point, if it is going to be open to a'l a very interesting and very important point aries to those of us who have got c.i.f. contracts. The c.i.f. contracts are arranged at a price in London with the freight taken at so and so an allowance made for freight. In the case of the Gas Light and Coke Company we have got both f.o.b. and eil mixed contracts. It is our duty to provide freight in the f.o.b. contracts, and it in the coal contractor's duty in the c.i.f. contracts. Now, is he or are we to take up these boats, and what is the allowance to be made? The old c.i.f. contracts were based on an allowance of 3. a ton. Now who is to pay the difference between 3. and this competitive rate to which we are put, 7. or something? That is a point which is a very difficult one.

(Chairman.) Who is paying it now?

(Mr Watson.) The coal contractor is paying it now in all cases, with perhaps some allowance from the gas companies.

47

[Continued.

(Chairman.) Why should not there be the same system?

(Mr. Watson.) You see he is doing it in this way. At the present moment he is probably not taking up any extra boats at all. He is doing it on the boste he has got. It is a very difficult thing to ask a man to take up a boat for 6s. when he has contracted to do it for 34.

(Chairman.) I am quite aware of that, but at the same time I do not see how you can alter that arrange.

ment.

(Mr. Watson.) The point I am trying to get at ia this will it be for the actual suppliers of the gas and electricity and other things in London to enter the market and do this, or shall they say to their con.

tractor: "You take them up; your contract is for carrying the coal, and it is for you to take them up, "and not for us." It comes back to pounds, shillings, and pence.

(Chairman.) I quite agree, but is it not the case of what you are actually doing at the present moment? As I understand, you now make arrangements with your contractors to supply you with the necessary amount of coal P They take up the freight and you make them an allowance. In fact, you share the loss between you. Is not that no P

(Mr. Watson.) Yee. It is a very different thing when the market is a big one. We make contracts in the spring and they are still running. When the war broke out the contractors came to us aud said: "It is "not fair that we should bear the whole of the extra "cost of the war rate," and 6d. was given to cover the actual cost. but they are still running the boats at practically the same old freights, 3s., plus an allowance of 8d., or whatever it may be. It is a very different thing if you ask them to take up boats in the market. The whole trend of my argument is to ask you to limit the competition if possible.

(Chairman.) I understand your point, and it is a perfectly fair point to put. At the same time I cannot seo yet—I do not know what we shall be able to say in three weeks time when the scheme is in operation I cannot see yet (and the people who have been advising us are of the same opinion) any satisfactory way for dividing out the small number of vessels to the large number of people who are clamouring for them. It is that which is making our whole difficulty. If we had a larger number of ships so that we could make them go round fairly we should see our way to do it all right, but with the small number we have I do not see honestly at the present moment any scheme. Of course, the amount that these boats will earn goes to nobody but the Government. It all comes back into the pocket of the nation. It is not as if it was going to anybody who is going to make a fat thing out of it. It is a public business, and it is not being done with any intention of making money. We would much ruther run the thing so that we did not make money; but it is the insuperable difficulty of being able to show afterwards that those boats have been fairly divided up, that A has got his proper share, and B ami C have also got their proper share; and it is to prevent anybody saying afterwards, But there is another

firm D who has been kept out of it."

*

(Mr. Watson.) I should have thought you were safeguarded on that by the fact that we are almost all

on our beam ends. What we want is not an abnormal

quantity of coal, or to pile up stocks, but simply to keep going. You will very soon hear the wants, and what we hoped was that the scheme was simply going to be a scheme for supplementing by Government effort the carrying of the absolutely necessary coal. One company--take, for example, a company like Tottenham would be able to tell your inspector or whoever was put on that they have only got one week's stock of cual. Obviously it is eminently necessary they should have coal delivered at once. The Gas Light and Coke Company might have two weeks; they can wait for a little while; and I should have thought that, at any rate, while the heavy weather was on and the strain, a much simpler way would have been to fix a rate and say these boats are to go to the people who can show they want coal. I

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