This letter was handed to. Messrs.
J. A. Wattie & Ca, Ltd, by Mr. Kadoorie, who, as soon as they had prepared the necessary figures to enable the members of the various boards to make a proper comparison between the amounts at present paid to the Straits Agents and those quoted by Mr. Soyka, convened a joint meeting of the boards of all the straits companies under their management under the chairmanship of Mr. M. Speelman at which the whole matter was thoroughly discussed, The directors, after very careful examination of the pertinent figures, were unanimously of the opinion that the present charges made by Kennedy Burkill & Ca., Ltd, represented a fair and reasonable remuneration for the services rendered by them and that those quoted by "Mr. Soyka, instead of effecting economies, would prove to be considerably more expensive to the companies in question, and furthermore it was unanimously decided that even if a ing could have been shown, which is not the case, the outage that would result from retairing the services of Messrs. Kennedy. Burkill Ca. Ltd, with their long experience of the problems affecting each property, would outweigh any slight monetary advantage that might acerne from a change of agents.
As regards the secretarial and directors' fees, the meeting was unanimously of the opinion that they were reasonable and compared favourably with those paid to others in the same line of business. I may say, for the benefit of Mr, Soyka, that I, as an interested party; dd$ not vote at this meeting, You, of course, are only concerned in hearing how Mr. Soyka's proposals would affect this company, and I may tell you that, on the basis of the accounts now before you, had Kennedy, Burkill & Ca., Ltd., been working on the basis of the terms propounded by hin they would have received at least Straits $3,900 more han they actually did, After some discussion, the follows ing resolutions were passed:—
That the directors' report and state-f accounts for the year ended 1, 1958, as presented, be lid passed. Proposed by Mr. Welch and seconded by Mr. R inn. a final dividend of four Chinese Mr, Yan Welch asa director of the company be at the appointment of Mr. A. confirmed. Proposed by Mr. Sze Hou Sung and seconded by Mr. Quincey: Wu That Messrs. Lowe, Bingham & Matthews be re-elected auditors of the company. Proposed by Mr. D. E. Levy and seconded by Mr. Wang Sing Fan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.