The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-04
PUBLIC OPINION.
Comments of Newspapers on a Variety of
Representatives," Perquisites and Such.

Comments of Newspapers on a Variety of
REPRESENTATIVES" Perquisites and Such.
From the Philadelphia Press.
Lord Russell, of killowen, Is a hard
hitting, clear-headed Irishman, who
has stirred up much in his day and
time, but he has never addressed him
self to larger task or had llVelier
fight before him than in the bill he has
introduced in the House of Lords, MAX
ing the acceptance of commission
by an agent OF crime unless the agent
can prove that his principal knew OF
his acceptance OF the fee, percentage
or gift from the man with whom he is
dealing for his principal. BY commits
SION is meant in England the percent
age paid in some form, direct or ind1-
rect, by the seller to the agent or en-
ploye of the buyer. The payment of
these divides exists everywhere, but
the evil is out of all proportion greater
there than here. AS Lord Russell says
| in his speech the cook collects on the
marketing, the butler on the wines,
the coachman on carriage, harness
and horseshoeing, and the gamekeeper
on every gun in the gunroom. Arehi-
tects get commissions of plumbers and
hardware men, and engineers out OF
builders. Druggists pay physicians
percentage of a quarter or third on
the prescriptions they send, and the
physician obligingly suggests druggist
at the beginning and and an under
taker at the end of his case. The
charge is made, though not by Lord
Russell, that the man" in the fash
ionable physicians ante chamber takes
fee from the patient and that the
physician has earned one from a no.
tel-keper when he has sent the patient
to a fashionable health resort.
The drummer" or as the English
t,.au ala n1e To
whom he sells goods, and his approach
to the head of a department in a big
company is made easy by tips and
commissions. The assertion is even
made IN England, astonishing as this
| may seem to Americans, that the pur-
chasers of railroad supplies collect COM
missions on their annual purchases and
get special fees for adopting a new ap.
pliance. Coal dealers pay commissions
to servants and receive them from the
agents of coal companies competing for
trade. Breweries pay commissions to
hotel managers and the commissions
of the manager on all his purchases
in one case tried n, court were bigger
than the profits of the company own
ing the hotel. E
This network of commissions, Lord
Russell declares, affects public offices
and city gas works, and in purchasing
supplies for Charitable institutions
asylums and work houses there is grave
abuse, and a system of corrupt and
pernicious bribery prevails" All these
| commissions Lord Russell proposes to
stop by an act whose vital clause de-
clares criminal
Every valuable consideration given
or offered to any agent by any per-
son having business relation with the
| principal Of such agent shall be deemed
to be corruptly given or offered unless
it be proved (a) that the principal had
given his consent thereto, or (b) that
the valuable consideration was not
| calculated or intended and had no ten
| dency to corrupt the agent by Undue
| ing him to do or to leave undone some
| thing contrary to his duty or by Great
| ing any undue influence on the mind
| of the agent.
The courts will be busy if this act
passes and is enforced in England, and
we fear that even in this country it
| would not leave them idle.