The first statutory meeting of the Company called to comply with the Hongkong Ordinances took place at the offices, 4, Peking Road, on 'Tuesday evening. 'There were present: Mr. W. D. Little (Chairman), Messrs. W. Bell, J. Ford, and W. Murray (Directors), E. w.' Clements, E. 0, Cumming, J. U. Quick, J. R. Micha J. Frost, O. H. McCaslin, 'M. Viladouki, W. Thomson, J. Hutchison, and W. W.
'The Chairman—his is the first ordin-ay general meeting of shareholders and is' called so that we may comply with the companies' ordinances of Hong kon; under which this company 1s registered These statutes require that a meeting shall be held within four months of June last. I have no resolutions to bring before you. I shall be glad to answer any questions you may put to me. Meantime, I may say that the business of the company is progressing satisfactorily. We have a good amount of work and orders on hand, from which we expect a reasonable amount of profit. We have had no misfortunes, unless" you consider the: decision of the Municipal Council to go into competition against us, an unfortunate circumstance. The question of Muncipal trading has attracted much attention in England. A Royal commission has sat on the subject. 'Their report has been recently issued. I will quote you one or two extracts from it. Clause 7 says: "Whatever view may be taken of the proper limits, if any, which can be set to municipal' trading, it is clearly important, that, wherever it exists, ratepayers should not be Jess fully and continuously informed of the success or failure of each undertaking than if they were shareholders in an ordinary trading company." Then under heading "audit" T read: The commission recommends that it be certified "that separate accounts of all trading undertakings have been kept, and that every charge which each ought to bear has been duly debited; and that auditors should be required to express an opinion upon the necessity of reserve funds, of amounts set aside to meet depreciation and obsolescence of plant in addition to the statutory sinking funds, and of the adequacy of such amounts." These extracts are interesting. Pa sonally, I am of opinion that private enterprise, supposing the trader has knowledge of his trade and pursues it keenly with energy and ability, has but little to fear from official trading. Further I am of opinion that the ratepayers of Shanghai will not benefit in any way if they permit the Council to keep a retail shop; on the contrary I fear the Municipal funds will suffer if launched in an enterprise which is outside their proper sphere of usefulness.
There were no questions and those present dispersed to inspect the show rooms of the Company.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.