Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - A Dispute at Yokohama -  1889 . . .

He declined to discuss the thing, and I said, “Very well, I will take what you give and sue you for the balance,” and he said, “All right, it will cost you dear.” Mr. Walter told me he had weighed the coal after it came into his possession; he said it had turned out 135 tons short. The coke was weighed out of ship.

They used a small Fairbank, or at least platform scale. Each draft was 112 lbs., and the basket was 8 lbs. total 120 lbs., I watched the weighing from time to time. I should say it was carelessly done. I often stopped them and showed them they were giving too heavy weight. I could see the scale going down thump. I made them stop and take off some of the contents of the baskets. I should say it was done hurriedly and carelessly.

I proposed to Mr. Walter to make an allowance on the coke of 1 per cent. same as the coal, but Mr. Walter would not agree to it. He not agreeing, the coke was weighed out. Mr. Walter told me the coke was short 37¼ tons. He has deducted the price of these 37¼ tons coke from freight and refuses to pay it. He has also deducted freight and insurance on the 16 tons of coals and refuses to pay that.

My mate on several occasions remonstrated with the man in charge of the weighing. My ship was not fully loaded at Cardiff; after coal and coke were put on board I had not a full cargo, as to displacement, but we were nearly filled up as to cargo space. We had a lump sum for freight in charter party.

Cross-examined — The coal and coke is weighed by an employé of the dock company. Both ship and shipper accept the weights. He is agent for both. We left Penarth on 26th June and arrived here on 7th November, we touched nowhere on the way. We had no bad weather on the way. We had nothing extraordinary at all.

As to displacement, I have tested the ship in Australia, Newcastle, in October 1885, with coal cargo coming to San Francisco to Guthrie & Co. I tested her again at San Francisco loaded with wheat about the beginning of 1886, and again in Cardiff in August, 1886, with coal consigned to P. & O. Company, Hong Kong, same charterers, and shipped by same firm at Cardiff as in this case. This is the third cargo of coals this ship has carried.