The thirtieth annual general theeting of shareholders of this Company was held at the Company's office, No. 2 Kiukiang Road, noon on Wednesday, Mr. E, C. Pearce presiding. speech the Chairmen 'The result of the year's wonking; is disappointing, more especially "after the better showing we made for the three previous years, Demand for all our ¢ro-ducts fell off considerably 2nd business'. in sulphuric acid has been greatly hampered by the very strict conditions imposed by the Customs authorities on the export of this acid: a hu chao has to be obtained for each shipment, and the consequent difficulty and delay has seriously interfered with the demand. The loss of even a small part of our trade affects us considerably, as our turnover is still small. As regards ithe future, the demand for acid is growing, it is true only slowly, but the indications are that it is more general and we can look forward more hopefully to the time when the capacity of our works "will be more fully taxed than at present. The rise in cost of all packing material has seriously affected us, as the cost of packing is a big item in our costs, as apart from the works cost of the acid itself. I regret that there is no hope of any material reduction in the costs of packing during the present year. The works have been kept in a thorough state of repair, certain parts of our plant have to be renewed, and orders for these have been placed. Before putting the the report and accounts to the meeting, I shall be happy to answer any questions that shareholders may have to ask.
There were no questions, and the formal resolutions were put to the meeting and passed.
Tar reports of the situation at Vladivostok have not been exagerated in the news despatches of the last fw days was indicated last Friday night when word was received at Peking from Yokohama that instead of coming to Shanghai the U.S.S. South Dakota will proceed at once to the Siberian port. The new flagship of the American Asiatic Fleet was expected to return to Shanghai next week.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.