The-Hong-Kong-Weekly-Press-1908-07-11 — Page 3

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-July 11, 1908:]

MERCANTILE INFORMATION

AGENCIES.

(Daily Press, 4th July.)

In one way or another many of our readers must be interested in those firms or agencies which offer to collect and present information about mercantile firms with whom their clients may have some prospect of doing business. There was recently made a decision by the Judicial Committee in an appeal emanating from Australia, in re "Macintosh v. Ďuno," which materially threatens the status of such agencies. Properly conducted, these mercantile in formation agencies are of the utmost service and value to traders so that the disagree ment of the Judicial Committee with the High Court of Australia will be watched with some anxiety as to its sequela. The Commonwealth judges recognise their use- fulness; the Judicial Committee points oue their dangerous possibilities as chartered libellers. In the particular case, the plaintiff was a Sydney firm of hardware merchants, about whom the defendants, a commercial information_bureau, gave in. formation to another Sydney firm, the reports being very unfavourable to the plaintiff's business character and standing. They were, in fact, such as were bound to prevent dealings with them by any firm to whom they were sent. Suit for libel was beg up, and before Mr. JUSTICE COHEN the plea of privilege was submitted. Previously the New South Wales Supreme Court had denied the privilege, uttering the opinion

that

the law will not allow a joint stock co-operative Blander association (limited)." "A jury therefore gave damages, to the amount of £500. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth reversed

this, all the Judges declaring such reports to be privileged. "I have no difficulty, indeed," said the CHIEF Justice, "in coming to the conclusion that the occasion was privileged." One Judge laid stress on the fact that only subscribers could obtain information. Another was impressed by the fact that the agency had a "duty " to the person who employed it. A man of business might make such inquiries by him- self or his servant; "if instead of sending one of his own servants to make the inquiry the merchant or trader chooses to employ a person or company carrying on the business of making these inquiries, it would equally be the legal duty of that person or company to communicate to the employer all juform- ation which he himself believed to be true, fully and freely, so far as his knowledge goes." Accordingly the verdict was set aside. But now the uncertainty of the law as defined. by Judges has become once more apparent. Transferred to England, the Judicial Committee has repudiated the reasoning above quoted. On the same admitted facts, and from the same cited authorities, they enunciated contrary con- clusions. Here is a summary of their view of such agencies :-

CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REFORT,

19.

they make mistakes in their perilous trade. He | since has been consistently alive to the quoted with approval the saying by Vice desirability of persuading its Chinese Chancellor Knight-Bruce, who, with the grim guests, now veritable members of the family humour of that master of irony remarked that "truth, like all other good things, may be loved to abide. Sometimes it has been complained oost too much", as much as a jury in its undue consideration to its Chinese consti- unwisely-may be pursued too keenly-may

that the Hongkong Government has given wisdom or folly may think it to give. That is tuents, but that may perhaps be ranked with the moral and lesson which Lord Macnaghten the numerous other growls common to the extracts from the whole case.

worth mentioning, he takes it out in white man on this rock. Having no vote grumbling. No one is, in the outcome, a penny the worse, and the Government gets through its work on the whole with consider- able success. The passing of a recent amending Ordinance is an example of how legislation follows grumbling. mills of the gods, the wheels of the Like the

revolve. With all his grumbling how- government move slowly, but they do

It almost amounts to this, that if such a agency advertises its business, offers to obtain the much-desired information, it is in peril of punishment; but if it does not advertise, and waits quietly till a possible client finds out its existence and applies to it for information, then it may give such under the protection of privilege. Which is absurd could find out what it wanted to know about For before à Hongkong firm a new customer in (say) Sydney, it would have to make patient enquiries for one of these agencies that are not permitted to announce their business. These agencies are now common enough, and so far as the absence of indications otherwise goes, they mest in the main be honest. They help both parties, where their representations lead to the giving of credit or opening accounts between firms previously unknown to each other. In America, the Courts consider information agencies as privileged, and the consensus given by such of opinion among business men everywhere is probably that should be privileged.

such communications Australian Judges remarked

As one of the have an interest in knowing, and have a Merchants right to know, the character of their dealers and those who propose to deal with them, and of those upon whose standing and responsibility they in the course of their business have occasion to rely"

ever,

never dreamed of saying what our London the Hongkong white man has contemporary has said for him, that the Chinaman is a poacher on his preserves. Probably in no place in the world—and certainly nowhere on the China coast-are the Chinese and the whites more friendly, kong. They are as business men at once more mutually appreciative, than at Hong- complementary and complimentary to each other. In a great measure this neighbourly feeling extends over adjacent Chinese who practical sympathy with Hongkong's trouble are not British subjects, and the Cantonese in 1906, the year of the typhoon, has just been reciprocated by a sincere effort tɔ do whom a still greater catastrophe has be- all we can for those in the Liang Kwang fallen. assurance that the feelings at all times The Daily Mail may accept our existing in this Colony are voly, very different from, and never to be compared with, those understood to prevail in (say) San Francisco. There are, however, other indications in our contemporary's remarks that suggest that someone not altogether (Daily Press, July 6th.)

responsible, perhaps the office boy, had been view with Sir ROBERT HART, which we It is, for example, not exactly convincing Referring to its representative's inter-wielding on this occasion the editorial pen. reproduced in our last issue, the Daily Mail reasoning which draws the following moral of June 6th makes a curious reference to from the simple fact that Sir ROBERT HABT the Chinese of Hongkong.

"There has chose to travel home under the German never been any doubt", it is good enough to |

say,

**

CHINESE IN HONGKONG.

that the Chinese are one of the most in- dustrious, sober, and intelligent races in the world. The fact that it has been found necessary to exclude them from the Pacific States of America and from the territories of the formidable character as industrial competitors. Australian Commonwealth testifies to their Where they have been granted free access, as in the Straits Settlements and Hongkong, they have rapidly monopolised most of the trade and commerce and bave virtually edged out the white man. Sir Robert Hart may well bid us ref:ot on what such a people of 400 millions may fashion. The organisation, he thinks, will take achieve if once it be organised in the European time, but it is important for us to note that it is already making steady progress."

"

any

flag,

In all directions he sees the signs of immense changes, perhaps one of the greatest being the fact that he comes home in a German ship. The unchallenged ascendancy on the seas which England possessed when he first want to the Far East in 1854 no longer exists. The statistically return of last year indicated the change when it minded will remember that the parliamentary showed that Germany owned 254 steamers of 4,000 tons and over, displacing 1,555,000 tons in 1905, to the British 247 of 1,322,000 tons. In the largest class of ocean-going vessel the British mercantile marine to-day has to take second place.

led home by P. & O. if he had wanted to. There are still a few ships of that line on the The Inspector-General could have travel-

rub.

(Daily Press, July 7th.) One of the features of the Fourth of July - demonstration with the object of endorsing celebrations in the Philippines was a great in mass meeting a petition in favour of Free Trade between the Philippine Islands and the United States. Meetings were arranged to take place not only in Manila. the Archipelago. but in many other of the principal cities of The demonstration was

circulation five times as large as that of

In a journal which can boast of a daily penny London morning journal, it is rather PHILIPPINES AND FREE TRADE. The reasoning, in the judgment of Lord that the Chinese of Hongkong have been or a pity to find any such idea being started as Macnaghten-upon whose words, in another case, by the way, some of the Judges in the from monopolising the white man's trade,

edging out" the white man. are

So far Court of the Commonwealth placed reliance- is simple. The defendants volunteered informa. they have largely helped to make it for him tion; and they did so not from any sense of and in spite of what the Chief Justice duty, but in the prosecution of a business carried recently had to say about that sixty year on for profit. They are not in the position of old institution, the Compradore, almost one who is asked to give information as to some every Chinaman in Hongkong has his use one in his employment or of a bank confidentially and his value, from the richest property consulted. Is it for the welfare of society that they should conduct a business capable of being days of the Colony, the white pioneers were owner to the poorest labourer, in the old abused under special protection ? " Lord Maonaghton's answer to this question is clear; in no doubt as to the necessity of a resident the defendants sell libellous information without Chinese population, and inducements and any distinot “advantage to society being the invitations were offered to secure such. result, and they must take the consequences if Broadly speaking, the Government ever

planned by the Merchants' Association; Philippines laws similar to those which have and the petition asks Congress to give to the been enacted in the case of Porto Rico Since that island of free trade with the United

was given the advantages