The following are the Report and Accounts of the C.MLS.N. Ca, from the seventh moon of the 3rd year of Kuang-sit (9th August, 1877) to the end of the sixth moon of the 4th year (29th July, 1878)
Ik is now five years since the Directors had the honour to receive instructions from the Earl Lite undertake the management of the Company, and at the end of each year a Report and Accounts have been carefully drawn up in the hope that the Shareholders would thus be induced to make themselves acquainted therewith. This year, reckoning from the seventh moon of last year, to the end of the sixth moon of the present, the total earnings of the Company as freight have been over Tls. 2,300,000, and from this it would appear that the greatest exertions to attract business have been made, and also a large balance of profit secured, Still, after deducting the expenses, and allowing for dividend on shares, and interest on borrowed money, loss was unavoidable. Some persons, in order to throw doubt on the management of the Company, will say that it has not been of the most satisfactory nature, but we have been so hampered that our task has been a difficult one.
In the first place we made no agreement with foreign merchants regarding the Ningpo and Yangtsze trades immediately after our balance Inst year. By the time an agreement was come to, the year was ended, 80 that, during half of the year under review we suffered considerable losses. Then there have been sources of loss which our Shave-holders are ignorant of. In the beginning of the ninth moon of last year (October), we received commands to convey to Tientsin rice for the relief of Honan and Shansi. At that time, too, there was a rush on the part of our clients to ship all kinds of grain which had been subscribed by the public for the relief of the famine sufferers, and the Company's steamers were insufficient to meet the demand. To assist in the conveyance of the grain, foreign vessels had to be chartered, and the expense of hiring them was great.' Besides, when the river was'closed on the advance of the winter season, goods had to be landed at Taku, and the additional expenditure in cart and coolie hire necessitated by the transport to 'Tientsin was enormous. Nay more, in the item of Government grain-transport our supplementary allowance of rice, after measuring, was a small one, because the rice grains had been somewhat' damped by the excessive rains. Wo had also to make money contributions out of our freight earnings to relief of distress in the three different provinces of Fokien, Shansi and Honan, and it is a principle of Natural Law that the more one pays to another the less one has one's self.
With regard to the insurance of our own ships by ourselves, it was agreed that, commencing from the first moon of this year, there should be annually laid aside Tls. 150,000 from the Insurance Fund, to be used for the repayment of the advances of the public monies made to the Company. After writing off in full the value of the How-sang, there remains of the insurance receipts for the year over TI this may stand for the Tis. ought to be laid aside for the first half-year under the above arrangement, as the difference between the two sums is but trifling. To provide funds for writing off the Kiang-charg, some other plan must be adopted. OF the five per cent. of the gross earnings devoted year after year to the expenses of the Head-Office and the Branch Offices, the surplus remaining after defraying all expenses, has now been passed into the General Account.
In accordance with the official memorial, a dividend of 5% will be paid to the. Shareholders. The Temaining 5% will be retained, and Shareholders invited to take additional stock for it. The accounts have been made up as before and submitted, according to law, to the Ministers Superintendent of Trade, and distributed to the branch offices at Tientsin, Hongkong, Foochow, Canton and Hankow. We beg the Shareholders in the vicinity of each of these places to inspect them, so that they may have a thorough insight into the Company's affairs, Respectfully drawn up by the China 'Merchants' Company Dr Ships Halanees for special Dividend on ordinary Stock Due Hussell & Ca.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.