the Memorandum and Articles Association the Capital of the Com-Thitteon thousand New Shares of wny be increased by the creation of
Fifty Taels each in addition to the Seven thousand like Shares already existing.
2.—That Seven thousand of such new shares (to rank for dividend as and from the Sist of March, 1905) shall be forthwith offered at par to the Shareholders on the Register on the 25th day of April, 1905 in the proportion of one new share to every existing share held by them and that such offer shall be made by notice specifying the number of the shares to which the shareholder is entitled and stating "that the offer will be deemed tube declined unless an acceptance of such offer in writing is delivered to the Secretary of the Company or to the
and Shanghai Banking Corporation, at Company's Bankers, the Hongkong Shanghai on or before the 30: h day of June, 1905, together with the sam of Taels Fifty per share for exch new stare 20 accepted and that upon acceptance and payment within the time above mentioned the shares so accepted and paid for shall be allotted accordingly and that after the 3!th day of June, 1905, any of such Seven thousand new shares not then accepted and paid for shall be Bowed of by the Directors either to shareholders or to others as they ble at the best price therefor not being less nominal value thereof and premium obtained thereon shall be dealt with by the Directors at their discretion.
That the remaining Six thousand of such new shares shall be issued at such future time or times and upon such terms and conditions as the Directors may think most beneficial to the Company.
Lhe resolutions were carried, after discussion.
Dr. N. Macleod said:—The director consider that the representations made to Rave been so far fulfilled wad that the respective shareholders early in 1900
capital hitherto subscribed has been ox-pended with results which justify them in Esking their fellow shareholders to. pose the Resvlutions which this Extraordinary Meeting has been called for the purpose of dealing with. The resolutions are tactically only one, and unless anyone jete has anything to say to the contrary I repose that you vote for them en bloc, if anyone objects I shall put them separately.
'The building we now occupy is ealculated to barely hold an exchange of 6,000 subscribers, and wien we took it five years ago on a ton years' lease we expected that we wond be able to stop here to the end of our lease. We are of opinion that we shall have 8 more rapid increase of business tian we expected five years ago and that we shall have to move into a larger place in 1909, if not sooner, We intend therefore to commence building next year on our property across the roxd, and the building will cost. Tls. 150,000 if not more. From the accounts you can see that wehave m mortgage on that property which falls due on the Ist of July next and to pay it off will take another Tis 100,000 leaving us with 102,000 to increase the capacity of the present exchange from 2,500 to 5,000 subsctiters. Such, gentlemen, is the use we intend to make of the money we now ask fur and if no-one present, has anything further to say on the Resolution, I shall put it to the meeting, Mr. E. S Little—Mr. Chairman, T have nothing 10 say in opposition to the resolution, Lam entirely in favour of it; but I would like to ask you if the directors have considered the question of automatic exchanges which are used by a thousand subscribers, in America. If that is working satisfactorily it would obviate a certain number of complaints which are now received from subscribers who are unable to get the service of the telephone as rapidly s they desire. I should like to enquire whether the directors would look into the subject of automatic exchanges.
The Chairman—I would like to say that Mr. Oberg's report or reports dealt with automatic exchanges, and other exchanges that are in use, but we are satisfied that automatic exchanges would not be satisfactory here. Perhaps Mr. Oberg would like to say something about it to the subscribers.
Mr. Oberg—I am very pleased to follow the Chairman's suggestion, but should like to have before me my report on automatic exchanges that I wrote shortly after I had visited the largest automatic exchange in the worl]. Imean the one in Chicago. Before I left Shanghxi I had read up a deal about automatics, for a service dispensing with operators and superintendence of their, and where the. subscriber does everything himself, is the very ideal of " good, secret telephone service. It was with great hopes that such a system could be adopted here that I started on my, voyage. As soon as I landed at San Francisco I was very much discouraged in this respect, for I found that although that portant telephone centre was altering its aystem and constructing three exchanges in the town capable of holding in all 100,000 subscribers, no one had for a moment thought of adopting the automatic system. Proceeding from there to Salt Lake City where they were constructing an exchange connecting up 100,000 subscribers ud further to Kansas City, St. Louis, and s0 ov, I did not find amongst tele! men who thought much of the automatic until I arrived at Chicago and visited the automatic exchange the This exchange is only eighteen months old, but boasts of more than 6,000 subscribers, and I found inthe manager of the exchange a man who was enthusiastic in praise of the system which he took great trouble to explain to me in every detail. Yet I came away from hit quite certain that, in its present shape, the automatic is not suitable for a large exchange. Any exchange of some importance now-a-days must calculate to have the number of subscribers running into five figures and a subscriber to an automatic exchange would therefore, when he rings up another subscriber, have to move hin dial down to five different numbers and between each time allow the dial to move slowly back at its own speed, This takes time and a great deal more atten than the ordinary business man with his head full? of things to remember is willing to bestow on a telephone if it can be avoided.
nother drawback to the system is th when you ring up and get reply, you do net know if the person in out or if the line is out of order, you would have to write to the exchange to find our. In other exchanges like ours only a small percentage of interruption of the service is reported by the subscriber by letter. The person in charge of the exchange is mostly made aware of them by some; other subscriber failing to connect, and immediately sends to repair them, often before the subscriber, whose service is interrupted, knows of the fact. Still the interruptions we it trouble to our subscribers an they would hardly bear such annoyance as to have to write every time and to wait so much longer for repairs to be done as would be the case in an automatic switch-service, The Chiesgo exchange held more chines, each subscriber having his own. These have many working parts liable to get out of order, which moans that they may refuse to work at all, work slow,, or connect with the wrong person, and there is no record yet available to show how large " percentage'of interruptions or bad connections is due to the delicate construction of these machines. As each subscriber makes! connection these chines make a loud click and daring the two hours of my stay at the exchange it gradually dawned upon me-that there were few clicks and often far between them, consequently few connections were made; while in our little exchange here, only one quarter its size, we would hear a click every second during the busy hours of the day. This cireumstance explained itself when I was informed that the company put up telephones to all who applied, charging no subscription and no installation fee, but on condition that each message rent was paid for at the rate of five cents, It appeared to me as if the Chicago exchange was an effort to boom a very desirable invention but I may of course be wrong. As long, however, as the largo American companies, who pay 80 heavily for operators, do not adopt the automatic system we may rest assured hero that it has considerable drawbacks besides its great costliness.
The Chairman—I beg to propose that the resolutions be adopted.
Mr. Paul Brunat seconded and the resolution wore carried unanimously.
The Chairman—Another joxtraordinary meeting will have to be held in loss than fourteen days or not more than a month from this day. That closes the business of the extraordinary meeting.
Mr. Hunt proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman, which was carried, and Mr. Oberg then invited the shareholders to inspect the exchange.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.