At the Meeting of the above Company the Chairman's speech was ax follows:—The report and accounts having been circulated than a week in ad ce of this meeting.
with your permission take them as Twill now make a few remarks to explain our accounts.
The twelve months under review have been occupied in the construction of the ange, tintly for the temporary service ud afterwards for the permanent service, and the expenses incurred by the Ca, in doing, have been charged to' the construction account. The working of the exchange which was opened on the Ist of August, was then on a very Jinited scale.
'The salaries and wages referred to in_the account include the wages of all the Chinese staff, clerks, operators, lineman, coolies, eomected with' the exchange and employed in the maintenance of the lines, and alw the salary of the superintendent of the exchange. The salary of the engineer does not appear, as he has been employed exclusively in the construction of the exchange, the overhead and underground lines, and hax had nothing to do With the working of the exchange, or the maintenance and repairing of the lines which have been at tended to entirely by the staff of the ex ngo, For the information of those not familiar with the working of a telephone exchange, T may explain that once properly constructed, the keeping it in working orde: requires no very high class training, and does not call fort special mau, Tt was well to mention here also that the rennuneration of the Secretary and General Manager hax nothing to do with the account, as his remuneration ix provided for, by agreement, out of the surplus of the profits after paying 8 per cent. on the capital to the Sh: rcholdens.
The cost of the house rent Ti. 75 per month has been proportionately divided between the construction account and the working account since the opening of the exchange, and that course seems fiir, as at tint the entire premises were devoted to the construction, Henceforth it ix intend-
Itisnatural that the expenses connected with the work 1 maintenance of the exchange will increase with the number of subscribers, hut they will not increase proportion with them, on the contrary, the proportionate cost of the working expenses for each telephone will be Jesencd.
For the present with 443 telephones j Treasurer in circuit, the total cost of wages of the Secretary Chinese "stuff fully sufficient for the Committee working and the maintenance of the xchange is well ander 150 Tis. per month, while the salaries, house rent, and many other espouses will not increase for a ime to come.
On the other hand, the i ne derived from. subscriptions is increasing and. for the quarter ending 30th June next amounts Iready to Tls. 5,000, without taking into account the installation fees.
regards the working of the telephones although there been some hitches at first ie seems to be improving. During the Jast mouth of April out of 438. telephones on circuit 357 have not been interrupted. The remaining S1 telephones have been interrupted, in_ all, 108 times during the month. Out of these 108 interruptions, 34 only were due to instruments or lines being out of order in a manner that might been prevented, whereas 28 interruptions were due to subscribers not using their instruments in a_proper manner, and 46 were due to kites fouling the lines.
Some subscribers objected at first, and perhaps some are stil] objecting to the rules focalls and answers, but these rules are those which experience has taught to be the hest and most convenient, and when all the sulxeribers understand them well and adhere to them you will find the service working smoothly.
At the sume time we must admit that our operators are not perfect and require some more training, and that accidents may—happen outside on the lines so. Tong as the construction is going on, but these defects will be diminished as time goes on With reference to the applications for new telephon " to them with all possible dispatch but it is impossible to connect them all at once and. in some cases there will he some delay.
At the time we begun the construction of the permanent number of applications for telephones did not amount to more than 200, and we thought that 500 lines would be amply sufficient for the first we acted on that suppesitio applications a i tending to them we experience same yuitly on account of the Municipal reculations providing for a limited number of wires overhead.
But when the laying of our underground cables is more advanced we shall he able practically to connect any number of telephones as our cement pipes can hold 11,400. wires thus accommodating 7200 subscribers, Three Directors, Mr. Campbell, Dr. Ins leod and Mr. Johnston left Shanghai during the period under review, but Dr. Macleod, has returned and rejoined the Board. ought to add that_Dr. Macleod was the first Chairman of the Ca. "He vacated the chair at the end of March 100 for a trip home. Mr. Johnston was elected Chairman in his stead, and remained in the chair until ket month when he left alw for home, and was elected Chairman.
Ax provided ly the Articles of Asocis tion Mr. Hey Mr. Heanon retire, Int {being eligible offer themselves for re-election,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.