1th Aug.
Tue pressure of events which, while more important in themselves also touch us more nearly than the half-yearly meeting of the shareholders in the P. and O, Company, has prevented our taking earlier notice of the speech of Sir Thomas Sutherland,,6.c.M.G., ete, etc., on the 12th of June last to his attentive shareholders. It is not flattery to say admiring shareholders, for in noticing the statement of Sir Thomas that he intended to discontinue semiannual meetings, Professor Hull ex-
holders would miss the intellectual his regret that the share-treat of listening to the Chairman's address. It was quite a full-sized treat that Sir Thomas provided on the 12th of June. After alluding to the decision of the board to discontinue half-yearly meetings, he ut his shareholders in an excellent umour by stating: "Iam glad to say that during the past six months we have passed through a period of considerable prosperity. I am glad to say that the Company's revenue at the end of March last, when the half-year''s accounts closed, was very considerably higher than the revenue fur the corresponding peried of the previous year." This was mainly due to the payments made by the British Government for the hire of the company's freight steamers as transports, none of the company's mail steamers having been actually engaged in that service. Notwithstanding the withdrawal of these freight boats, the freight receipts for
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.