Shareholders' Offer to Surrender Bonus to Secure an Improved Service: Trained Supervisors and Better Paid Operators Demanded The twenty-third annual ordinary general meeting of shareholders in the Shanghai Mutual Telephone ©o., Ld., was held at the Tel phone Building on Tuesday, Mr. Ueeil Holliday presided and there were also present Messrs. C. M. Bain, V. Meynard, H. G. Simms (directors), P. H. Cole (general manager), C. W. Porter (secretary) and other shareholders, representing in all 3,506 shares. The notice convening the meeting was read.
The Chairman said The report and accounts having been in your hands for several days, we will, with your permission, take the usual course and consider them as read. Beyond that, I have nothing to say about them, because as you will have noticed, the report is much fuller and more detailed than has been the case in former years and covers all the points the Chairman has usually touched on in his speech. In adopting this plan, your dire:- tors think they are saving valuable time and also recording the facts about the company's working that it is customary to call attention to en record in a much more conven: ent form and in this we hope you will concur. But the result is, it leaves me nothing to say, so I will proceed to move the first resolution, but before doing so, if there are any questions any shareholder would like, to ask, I will do my best to answer them.
Mr. A. W. Burxity Criricizes.
Mr. A. W. Burkill:—Under ordin-ery circumstances, I presume we could congratulate the directors on presenting us with a very fine report, but, to my mind, thay have lost sight of the objects of—this company. We are not here te make big profits and to be an investment company. If I remember rightly, when the company was first started, the idea was that it was to be a mutual company in the true sense of the word. We were to have an efficient service at a minimum cost and dividends were to be kept down to the reasonable figure of 8 per cent.
This year you have done two things, you have made a great deal of money and you have given us a poorer service than ever. I do not believe in destructive criticism, Lut I would respectfully suggest to the directors that, if they paid less attention to the money-making side of the company and more attention to giving us a better service, they would please us all and cause less trouble to the directors themselves. The trouble here, I should say, is lack of supervision and you are in want of properly trained operators. We are all ready to admit that you have hard task to deal with your Chinese, but I think you should go more thoroughly into the question of getting a better class of Chinese.
To my mind, the Chinese can work as well as anybody, but you kawa got to pay them well. I think the matter could be settled if you would devise some system of paying your Chinese better and arrange so that a man would know that, at the end of a certain number of years if he had given full satisfaction, he could retire with a certain competence. You must get a better class of men and if mora attention is paid to that we—shall have a better service.
Expert Supervisors Requirep.
I do not know how yow are situated with regard to supervisors and whether they are brought out from Home, but, if they are not I respectfully suggest that an effort should be made to get first-daes people with such training in big exchanges that they will be able to tackle the problems which present themselves here every day.
you do that you will see a better_ service.
Going back to the question of big dividends, I think you have lost sight of the fact that the company was supposed to be a mutual company and that, if you charged too much for services, subscribers could look for a reduction in the rates. There is no necessity to pay 12 per cent. This year you have made 50 per cent. profit. How ever nice this may be—and_probably some will want the money—T maintain that we ought to have a reduction in the rates if we are going to make all that money. At the present moment we are paying very highly for am inefficient service.
The Settlement has lately grown enormously: houses, mills and fac tories are extending outside what is known as the old Settlement limit and yet you still maintain the rule that a user of the telephone outside the Settlement has ne right to a discount even if he is a shareholder. That is another point the directors might consider. It is a very important point and has caused a good deal of dissatisfaction. I believe you have received a letter from the British Chamber of Commerce and I have been asked by my colleagues on the committee to express their dissatis faction with the telephone service as now rendered. An efficient telephone service is very necessary in a business community like this and I hope that by next year we shall be able to congratulate you on an improvement.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.