'The annual general meeting of the U. N. Ca, was held at the Ofices of the Agi Messrs. Olyphant & Ca., jon 31st' Mare! Present—Messra, R. Francis, Chairman J. G. Purdon, T. M. Drysdale, and Talbot Olyphant, Directors; and J. F. Seaman, W, Little, A. Dent, R. E. Wainewright, A. Groom, W. 8. Maclean, A. J. Vickers, Daly, ©. J. Ashley, P. Maclean, R.F. Hastlack, W. Chrystal, W. Crawford, McLoughlin, E. B, Gutterrez, E. Krug, Seligmann, W. H. Rickard, T. Wheelock, &e., representing 1637 shares 'The Cuarniran having read the notice convening the meeting, The Szorerary read the minutes of half-yearly meeting of 3rd September and adjourned extraordinary meeting of Oth November, 1873, which' were confirmed.
The Cxrarratax said, before proposing the firat resolution, he must express his regret at having to make remarks upon a document so unsatisfactory and in every way regrettable as the Report before them. At the meeting of Sra Sope., 1873, he had, in reply to Mr, Little, said that the Acantha been giving every satisfaction and ut that the chartered veasols could id to have more than covered their expenses, and that the Craigforth did not do that; and he likewise referred to of the Kwangchow. At that particular time, the accounts showed the steamers wore about paying, so far as they were able to judge from simply having the amount of the gross freight list and estimates of their expenses, Just at that period, the charter of the City of Exeter was finished, but it was then renewed for another three months; the Mecca was going on, A few weeks after that time, freights not improving, but the reverse, they found the afoamers were losing. They accordingly concluded, at the beginning of October, that it was undesirable to entry on the oporations of the Company, and to recommend that it be wound up provided some change for the better did not show itself—meanwhile to avoid further operation Previously to that they had been ande: vouring to find tio steamers to make up the line, one of which was to replace the Krwangchow; and many proposals were made to them, but all too high to be entertaine: About October however a steamer was pr osed tothem from London, which they were informed would be far superior to the Acantha, at a cost of £31,000.. They wrote offering '£28,000; and at the same time the Thales wes offered to the Company. Being unwilling to yo into negociations without first trying the ateamer, they pro pored to charter the Thales for one month, That charter came into effect, snd was the reason the shareholders still found charters were going on after it had been discovered that the operations of the Company as regards chartered steamers were not of a successful character, In the following week they concluded to oband. the, purchase of steamer, and to wind up the Company us soon as possible, pro-wiled of course that at the Bret meeting the shareholders desired to do so. So far. they were not open to the charge of carrying on the operations of the Comp.ny unnecessarily'after having discovered thataloss was being incurred. When the one month's charter of the Thales had expired, they declined to continue it, and she was then running on owner's account, he believed. About a month later the Acantia, whil starting on a voyage from the South to Shanghai, broke down and had to put back; and at that moment they were offered the charter of the Thales on more favourable terms than before. As a valuable freight by the -Acantha was waiting, they determined upon renewing the charter for two months, terminating it at the end of that time. "The chartered steamers' account, they would see, showed a net loss of Ts. 24,000. The Acantha stood in that at a loss of Tls. 3,489, while on the- 23rd October, as far as the estimates went, she showed " profit ut about Tls. 6,000. Phe two following months were wnfavourable, and the misfortune of losing this trip towards the end of the term, and having to pay Tis, 5,000 odd in consequence, for damages, and necessary repairs not in the ight of damage, made the loss of about is. 3,500. That gave a total loss on chartered steamers of about Tls. 20,00. So uch for the matter of chartering steamers, The next most important item in the accounts as loss to the Company, was the amount due against advances. on goods fraudulently delivered from Mach kew Godowns It wi not to be supposed, peared, that it implied anything agai Mackie's conduct in the matter.
fectly blameless, except perhaps in placig too much confidence in his compradore, who had been for some years in charge of Olyphant's wharf under a former manager, and subsequently under Mr. Mackie, and in whom the latter placed the utmost ce dence. Ayainst thix account they had hoped forecover the fall amount withuat any fos at all. Mr. Mackie had procured security ops, but these hui unfortunately turned out worthless. He also made over, to the ject to a first mortgage of Tis, 23,000. Messrs. Boyd and Ca., in whose dock she was, had avery heavy claim upon her, and in addition to that, they understood it would have cost from Tis, 9,000 to 10,000 to have sent her to sea, The question for the rectors was, whether they would pay these prior claims, and take their chance with the vessel. They concluded not to do so, and he hoped the shareholders would approve of their action. On la particular point the Directors differed, believed, from the General Agents to the policy of the course pursued. However, the Directors had thought it hetter not to trammel themselves under the circumstances, particularly as there was another claim against the steamer, that of Messrs. Russell & Co.—settled as far as this part of the world was concerned, but sub-Ject to appeal to California. Of course, Among the items entered in the expenses of the steamers, one of the most important was that of coals, and the meeting might wish to know whether proper precautions had been taken in this matter. He had carefully gone through all the accounts of coal rendered to the different steamers and he found they appeared to be moderate, with the exception of the Thales, which had been a very expensive steamer, Phot was one reason if there were no other why they should decline to purchase the Thale-. The Acantha was the only steamer which allowed a comparison with a former period to be made, in which she had been chartered for six months, when she made a profit of Tls. 13,000. Taking her coal account for the number of voyages then made, and comparing it with the cost for nine months later, it was found to be 13. per cent less than on the former occasion.
icy would observe the item stati terest on out-fanding Debentures account to be Tls. 6,870, and the sum of Tls. 885 credited for interest received on advances, They might think the latter very little under the circumstances, but the fands of the Company were sent to London at early period of this term to pay for the Kwangchow, and were only received back in October or November. As soon as the Directors had a favourable oppor-they invested about Tls. 68,000 on security, which had been bearing interest up to nearly the present time. He noticed another item, the expense 2c-count, the proportion of which was rather Yess than that of the former half year. One important item therein was that f telegrams, Tls. 1,1¢0. They had been endeavouring to find a proper steamer for the Company, and the item was largely increased by their having had to telegr to London and other places in matters relating to the putehase. Another item in the account was the allowance for offic to the General Agents—Tls, 900, ut the rate of Tls. 100 per mouth. The legal expenses stood at Tls, 044; Auditor's foes, Tis, 300; Directors, Ts. 1,500 French Municipal Taxes, Tis, 700; transhipment allowance to Butterfield and Swire, Tis, 634; and, together with other minor expenses, a total was arrived at of Dis. 7,000. A' list of these items was open to inspection on the table. In addition to having these accounts audited by the two gentlemen appointed by the shareholders, the Directors had made a careful and special audit themselves, and the accounts were there and might be examined by any shareholder, They were very minute, and went into full details. "This, he thought, was all he had to say in reference to the Working Account, except to answer any ques-ions. He would now look at the Capital Account. Taking the item of sundry creditors, it was now reduced by payments of about Tis, 4,600—of course that was an item under v hing to have their money, and entitled to it, could be paid at any time, and these amounts would all be settled as soon as the accounts with which they were connected could be adjusted. Of the debenture luan they would seo that already Tls. 16,000 stood on the credit side, reducing the amount to Tls. 84,000. Of that, Tls. 16,000 were at5 years payable in 2 years more, and about Tis 67,100 were payable to-morrow, for which proviso made. The advances outstanding, he believed, were all repaid. Of freights outstanding about Tls. 1,532 remained unpaid. Of balance due from the Avents at the Outports,- Is, 1,800 had been paid and the remainder were matters of account, the principal being that with the Hongkong and Canton agency. Regarding sundry debtors", the amounts remaining now at the debit of that accwmt were about Tls. 5,400. One was an smonnt of li twice charged—once in London Hongkong, and the matter had been referred to the latter place for adjust-Deducting that amount there was about Tls. 2,000 only, which they considered good. Asto the estate of Glover Dow Ca., he was sorry not to be able to give any precise information, but Mr. Burkill had kono over to Japan to prosecute the interests of the creditors.
Mr. Dent thought that had been all written off The Cuanoran said the original amount was Tls. 17,000, of which Tis, 12,000 were written off, and there had been a small dividend, leaving the balance stated. As to the steamer Rema's expense account, the matter being still unsettled they had left it ae it was, "A proposition had been made to the Messageries at Hongkong to settle the matter amicably between them and the Agent of the Company, but they said that the Company being a public one it must be settled in a legal manner, and it would be some time probably before it would be adjusted, The stock of coal was now reduced to about 282 tons which, if not disposed of, would be available for the Avaitha if she came back into their hands. With regard to the Acantha, she was now on offer under charter which allowed the charterers to purchas" her for the sua of Tls. 100,000, should they in-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.