The evening world. Newspaper, December 1, 1916, Page 19

n ADVERTISEMENT, tHE EVENING WORLD, FRIDAY, DEOEMBER 1, 1916, _ | ADVERTISEMENT, | ADVERTISEMENT, |. ADVERTISEMENT, | ADVERTISEMENT, |_____ ADVERTISEMENT, ADVERTISEMENT, The Truth about Burns Bros. The statements in the press respecting the conduct of our business contained such misleading charges that, in view of the present public interest in the coal business, we feel it necessary to correct them. Our prices for coal since the stringency have been as follows: BGs AEH CO NOU). CER cvscicccvcrssccetsiviasiersssassssesssevsvcsesvtes $7.50 per ton Nov. 8th to 13th.ccccceccc oo cesveseveeeee’ 9,50 per ton Nov. 14th to the present. ............ccccccecicseeeetcsesceeeeaes 8.75 per ton We arrived at these figures from day to day by averaging what high priced coal we bought with the low priced coal we received from the regular companies. In view of the above, it can be readily understood that we are not implicated in the $12.00 prices so fre- quently mentioned in the daily press. Now, regarding the statement that the Central Railroad of New Jersey has been allied with us, it is abso- ‘lutely false. There is no connection whatever between us except that we lease from them certain facilities for conducting the coal business. The press reports suggest the inference that we, under this lease, are securing improper advantages over our competitors. This lease was one which was possessed by two coal companies acquired by us about eight years ago and was made originally by the Receivers of the Central Railroad of New Jersey when the property was in the hands of the courts in 1887. This lease gives us no improper advantages over our competitors, nor does it result in any discrimination in favor of this company, as is evidenced by the fact that it has been under investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission from 1912 to 1915 and up to the present time, they evidently considered it all right or they would have ordered the Central Railroad of New Jersey to cancel or modify, neither of which have they done. In reference to the allowance, the New Jersey Central tariff provides that shippers who perform any part of transportation service should receive a ‘compensation therefor. We do perform transportation service of transshipping coal at the Communipaw pier and for that service we receive the duly published allowance of 12c per ton which the tariff provides, instead of 30c as alleged in the newspapers. This tariff has been filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission and can be taken advantage of by anybody similarly situated on their railroad, and there are a number of them. 6 The Central Railroad of New Jersey have never to our knowledge been in the coal busi- ness and they actually carry, all told, from the various shippers on their road, somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000,000 tons of coal per annum. We purchase from the various sources for use at the Communipaw yard and for shipments over the pier approximately between 350,000 and 400,000 tons instead of 5,000,000 as alleged in the newspapers; in fact, our total business is between 2,750,000 and 3,000,000 tons net, or about thirty per cent of the business done in the Metropolitan district, instead of sixty per cent as mentioned in some of the papers. Now, on account of the misunderstandings regardin our position in the trade, we have no hesitation in offering to submit any of our papers to the District Aitorney and we are perfectly willing to allow any com- - mittee of unbiased citizens to select an expert chartere accountant to go over our books and verify the state- ments mace herein. Regarding the assertion that we have been the cause of certain dealers quitting the coal business, we would respectfully refer the public to a jury of our competitors and are perfectly willing to have them decide whether we have, in any way, tried to force anybody out of business. We are willing to abide by their decision, as they are the people that know the conditions, Respectfully, Burns Bros. M. F. Burns, Pres. oS aa ey - ADVERTISEMENT,