A judgement of considerable importance in the test case brought by the China Coast Officers' Guild against the San Peh S. N. Ca. was delivered by Mr. A. D. Blackburn, British Assessor, and Magistrate Li in the Mixed Court last Friday.
Judgement was also given in the action brought against the San Peh S..N. Ca. by Captain N. Grehwe.
Mr. K, E. Newman conducted the case for Captain Grehwe and the Guild, and Messrs. L. K. Kentwell, M.'B. Brown and N. Y. Chang represented the defendant company.
The Court found as follows in the case of the China Coast Officers' Guild v. the San Peh Steam Navigation Ca.
This is an a tion brought by the plaintiffs to compel the defendants to comply with the terms of an ar-bit ration award.
The facts are briefly as follows: In December, 1919, the masters and officers of the steamers operating on the China Coast, being dissatisfied with their salaries, went on strike. After some negotiation the dispute was referred to the arbitration of two gentlemen in Hongkong, and on May 27, 1920, an award was made allowing higher scales of wages than those in force previously, and making the new scales re-prospective as from December 15, 1919. The parties to the arbitration were the China. Coast_ Officers' Guild, and the Marine Engineers' Guild of China on the one side and certain steamship companies on the other side. Although the name of the defendant company appears in the award as a party to the arbitration it is admitted by the plaintiffs that the defendant company did not in fact sign a submission to arbitration, pleading that such submission vould run them into a lot of money", but signed instead an undertaking in the following form:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.