The adjourned extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders of the Sheridan Consolidated Mining and Milling Ca. was held at the office of the Chamber of Commerce, Peking Road, on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. G. J. Morrison was in the chair, and there werealsopresent Messrs. A. McLeod, H. J. Such, J. C. Hanson (1 adviser), J. Buchanan, C. Thorne, 3. 3 A. Evans, Duncan Glass, J. A. Harvie Black, and J. D. Thorburn (Secretary).
'The Chairman—There being far' more than a sufficient number of shares repro-sented, this meeting is duly constituted consider the proposal which has been made by the New England Exploration Company to buy the whole of the property ut this Company in America. "At the original meeting, called a week ago, I explained the circumstances of the case as welles I could, and as all of you were present at that meeting it is unnecessary for me to repeat all that T said on that occasion. The state of affairs is that some years ago we found ourselves unable to Supply the necessary funds to work our mine on our own account, and we leased tw the Smuggler Union Company, The money received in royalties from that company has bees much smaller than we expected, and uow the Smuggler ion has been bought up by the New jand Exploration C The latter company has wade us an offer to buy the whole of our property for gold $125,000), in addition to which they assume the whole of our present debt to the Smuggler Cuion, As T mentioned last week that sum of money will be sufi our indebtedness, but will leave only a nominal amount' for our shareholders. Therefore if the shareholders present to. day pass this resolution they—must make up their minds that practically all the money they have sunk in the purchase of shares is lost. I feel very uncomfortable in making that statement, bub nothing £ can say can alter it, I have made some concessions, and T have als received letters from some of the debenture holders saying that they will also make concessions. They have not made any definite promises, but even if they do make these concessions do not see that you wan receive more than Tis, 2 per shire, and even that amount can only be receiv on account of the fact that the New England Exploration Company, who hold 9,000 shares, have stated that they do not make any claim on account of these, or ask to participate in any balance that may remain after paying the debts of the Company. It has been proposed by one of the shareholders particularly, and it is no doubt in the minds of others, that we should have anot! examination of the mine before accepting the present offer. With regard to that I am perfectly convinced of the value of the mine, and any expert going over would my we have a vaiosble mine, bat T am convinced he would say we cannot work it ourselves without putting in " good deal of capital. Is there any hope that, having received a favourable report, moneyed people will come forward and' make us a better offer, thus forcing the New England Company to increase their offer, or to pay us the full bonded price of the mine. About a year ago I approached some financial people who are interested in mines in America. I put the matter before them. I said, "I can assure you from my own knowledge that the mine is good. I am absolutely certain that if you make prelinimary enquiries in the district you will find that the general statements bear out what I'say. I am convinced that if, after that, an expert is appointed to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.