American Trading Ca., told the court that on August 18, he cabled all his branches in the United States and Europe temporarily to suspend all shipments for Shanghai in view of the hostilities, Mr. P. F. Kops, attorney for the defence, then asked the court to dismiss the case as the delay in delivery was caused by force majeure and consequently came under the ruling of one of the conditions of the sales-contract.
Mr. C. S. Franklin, on behalf of the plaintiff, told the court that there was no difficulty in trans-shipping the cargo in Hongkong and that only a delay of about one week would have been caused. In substanti on of this contention, he called Mr.
H, R. Semmelink, assistant manager of the local branch of the Java-China-Japan Line, to the witness box, who said that in view of the fact that the quantity of the cargo was very small he believed that there would have been no difficulty in shipping it from Rotterdam after the hostilities had started and that accord-by the plaintiff to the defendants ing to past experience it would have war asking for a compensation as he could have made a good profit had the merchandise, arrived in time Mr. J. B. Bell, who often acted an) behalf of the American Trading Ca. in securing business, was alleged by the plaintiff to have himself corrected a draft for such a letter before it was sent to the defendants on
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.