28th Jan.
THE time has come round for us to consider one of Sir Thomas Sutherland's semi-annual speeches to the shareholders in the P. & O. Company. The fifty-eighth annual general ieeting was held in London on the 9th ult, and we "have to thank Herapath's Railway and Commercial Journal.for_a full report of the excellent address made on. that occasion by the Chairman of the Company, Sir Thomas Sutherland, GOING, LID., MP. It is the good fortune of Sir Thomas, and}! when one calls it good fortune one knows it is really good management, that half-year" after half-year he is able to lay before his constituents a satisfactory report; and it is another proof of his energy, that while the shareholders would no doubt be contented to be told in a few words, "we have had another half-year and you will get such and such dividends," Sir Thomas is not content unless he has unfolded the history of the previous six months, which he does, comprehensively, comprehensible, and with touches of dry humour. He is a chairman who can talk as well as act.
In moving, as usual, the adoption of the report, Sir Thomas began by reference to the saving of the China, stranded on Perim, a rescue which, he said, "may be considered as thoroughly creditable both to those who are engaged as salvors outside the many, and to the officers and men belonging to the Company, who are equally engaged in that important operation.". We quote this, because it is not the habit of Sir Thomas to draw attention to the merits of the Company's staff afloat. He went on to amuse his hearers by telling them of some wnanticipated difficulties in connection with the rescue of the China, of an entirely exceptional and unusual character. He was referring to the number of leaks to be stopped after the China had been knocking about for six months on the rocks, and he said: " When these leaks are stopped by the divers with oakum—which, I presume, is well tarred for the purpose—and the divers leave their work, the oakum is immediately devoured by the crabs which infest the harbour of Perim. I presume that the crabs take this diet medicinally, but at all events it appears they do take it with a very great deal of energy and appetite, so much so that this is really one of the difficulties over which the resources of. civilisation have ey, just been able, I believe, to-prevail."
rom crabs Sir Thomas passed to greyhounds, the new greyhounds p of the Levant, the Zsis and Osiris, which have for several months been keeping up an average speed of 18 to the whole distance of 1,000 miles between Port Said and Brindisi. Another sister-ship of the China is being built, to be called the Persia; two big steamers, the Assaye and Sobraon, are building, and the Company has bought, as already announced, three large freight boats from the Hall Line, which are to bear the too well-worn names of Nunkin, Pekin, and Tien-names it would be lifieult to make. tsin. A more unhappy selection of
Sir Thomas was well able to congratulate his shareholders on the continued increase in the amount received from passenger traffic, and he explained "what a precarious business it was running the large fast steamers of the present day, which are only filled for a very brief portion of the year, and for many months run largely empty. He showed the utter baselessness. of the charges made against the P. & O. Company "by a body of gentlemen who describe themselves as the Cheap Passage Association and he averred that "one of its last. prominent representatives was a gentleman who, when he found it did not pay sufficiently, applied to me (Sir Thomas) on more than one occasion to be nominated one of this company's passenger agents, or to be otherwise employed by us, an offer which we respectfully declined." Sir Thomas concluded this part of his subject by pointing out that "when this Company has aimed, and does aim, at a return of only 74 per cent on an average on the capital employed in our business, that that is aiming at a very moderate return in connection with which there is nothing whatever of a grasping kind; and when I say that that return includes not only the profit on your carrying business, but: the profits which you derive as' well from the r which you undertake as underwriters, I emphasise in the most absolute manner the very moderate character of the demands which we ever attempt to make on the public." And really no-one can honestly say that rates of passage by the P. & O. steamers nowadays are excessive.
The Company's freight revenue, said Sir Thomas, amounted to £1,569,115, showing the exceedingly disappointing increase of £13,229; disappointing, because a very' im-Todian trade in March last. But portant improvement set in in the
there was a heavy decline in the Bombay-China trade, owing to the very low exchange prevailing in China, and a slight relapse in the Australian and the China trade. But no fears need be entertained as to the future of Australia, the respects in India are favourable, and China and Japan will give normal returns. The extension of British territory on the Kowloon
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.