The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-03 00:00:00

NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.

The directors of this cotn[any recommend a
dividend at the rate of 3 per cent. per annum
for the past half year, carrying forward a bal-
ance of £1,500.

LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST.

The half yearly general meeting of this company
was held yesterday at the International Hotel,
London-bridge Station. Mr. S. Laing, the chair-
man, presided.
The report, an abstract of which appeared in
The Sun, was taken as read.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving its adoption, referred
at considerable length to tto results of the unfor-
tunate accident that had occurred on the line at
New-cross. if they had not had that accident the
directors would have been enabled to recommend a
dividend of £1 2s. 6d. per £lOO ordinary stock. It
was two and a half years ago when the present
directors came into office. At that time the com-
pany was in a state of bankruptcy, and had
£2,300,000 of liabilities to meet. Since then the
solvency of the company has been restored, and
the liabilities on capital account had been so
far reduced that it could be closed. After pay-
ing all expenses on revenue account, the preference
dividends were fully assured. The expenditure that
had been forced on them by the accident and charged
to the past half-year was £45,000. That had an
important bearing on railways generally as to what
they might have- to pay as compensation. 'The
accident was caused by a goods train having passed
by three signals intended to arrest the progress of
a coming train, and having run into a passenger
train. There were also the usual distant signals.
Those signals were devised by the united wisdom
of their own officers as well as those of the Board
of Trade. The driver of the train was an old and
trusted servant, and had been 20 years in the ser-
vice of the company. It was purely an accident;
and he thought it hard on railway companies that
accidents in the streets, on the water, and in coal
mines should frequently occur without compensation
being demanded as in the case of railways. The
licensed victuallers had been conveyed to a fete at
the Crystal Palace, and on the return of the train
there were 600 pasiengers in it, and although the
collision by the goods train did not break any of
the carriages, 360 claims for compensation had
been made. The first object of the directors
after the accident was to find out the bona fide
injuries to individuals. A medical man of the
highest talent had engaged for the company three
surgeons to attend those who were injured as
soon as possible, and the company offered to
settle claims by arbitration. Notwithstanding all
their efforts, 126 law suits were carried oa
against the company, involving considerable ex-
pense. A system of proceedings had grown up among
professional men in the hopes of making a profit
out of accidents on railways. There was dietiect
evidence of 13 or 14 cases being got up by one firm,
who pushed matters to the extreme, and brought
the cases into court. The claims for medical attend-
ance in some cases were ten times the usual charge,
and one of those claims, for £291, had been reduced
to £29. As regarded some of the cases, one claimed
£5,000, and the jury awarded £10; another had
£125 awarded ; another claimed £15,000 and £lOO
was awarded ; iu another case £l,OOO was claimed,
and less than £5OO was awarded ; and a claim of
£5OO was awarded £5O. The tendency of juries
was to award heavy damages, and two of the Judges
before whom cases were brought had expressed
themselves strongly as to the heavy damages
awarded. The present system of awarding damages
in case of accidents on railways was condemned, not
only by those who knew the merits of those cases,
but by the Judges. One man got a verdict for
£330, but an accomplice who was promised £5 and
did not got it gave information which resulted in
its being most clearly proved that the man was never
in the train at all, and in consequence he was now
iu respect of the £45,000 paid by the company ex-
ceeded £150,000, and were it not for the great
ability and energy of the legal gentlemen em-
ployed by the company he believed the compensa-
tion would have amounted to double the sum the
company had paid. When it was considered that

the sum paid for conveying the 600 persons to and
from the Crystal Palace was only £l7, leaving a
profit, perhaps of £8 or £lO, the amount of com-
pensation was out of all proportion to the sum re-
ceived by the company. He thought in cases where
persons were conveyed at a material reduction in the
fares that the compensation should be limited to
a fixed sum, and that where the full rates were
paid the compensation should be much more.
It was the interest of the public that they should
be carried at rates below the maximum fares. Par-
liament had fixed a maximum rate of charge in each
case, and he thought they might fix a maximum
amount of compensation, and if persons wished
they should have power to assuce with the com-
pany a larger amount in case of accident. Where
the rates charged were very low, he thought that
£2OO for a third-class passenger, £3OO for a second-
class, and £4OO for a first-class passenger would be
sufficient liability. He was of opinion that a stand-
ing tribunal, consisting of five or six first-rate men,
to investigate all the cases of an accident, would be
much more competent to deal with such matters,
and he believed the decisions in such a case would
be more satisfactory to the company and the in-
jured persons than the verdicts of 20 or 30
different juries. With regard to the falling off
in the traffic receipts, he thought that the long-
continued depression had more
,to do with it than
any alterations in the fares. The directors had
done their best to exercise economy during the
last two and a half years, in working the
traffic without having had any aid from capital.
He confessed that if any one told him two years
ago that the working expenses could be reduced to
50 per cent.,
and to 3s. per train mile, he would
have
g
possible in so short a time.
Ha
that result, he was not quite
notvno t
obtained
ined it
satisfied, and would endeavour to do better. He
stated that they had reduced the fares by express
trains to Brighton from 19s. 3d. to 17s. 6d. ; by
ordinary trains, first-class, from 15s. 6d. to 145.,
by seeond-class from 11s. Bd. to 10s. 6d., and by
third-class from 7s. 4d. to 6s. 6d. They had also
reduced the price of season tickets on the suburban
lines. They had made return tickets to Brighton
available from Friday to Monday, instead of from
Saturday to Monday. They had 18 suburban work-
men's trains, the return fare being 4d. for 16 miles.
They had five third-class trains a-day to Brighton
at fares of 4s. 2d., and the return ticket for the same
day 6s. 6d. for 100 miles. It was the depression of
trade that affected their receipts, and not the reduc li
-
tion of fares. The receipts from Goodwood Races
had fallen off 32 per cent. in the past two years.
He saw by the returns of coal traffic to London
brought by sea and railways that the quan-
tity was 500,000 tons less in consequence of the
depression of trade during the past two years ; the
increase in the fares bad failed to increase the re-
ceipts, as expected. They found that raising the
return fares had failed to give the company the ad-
vantage expected. On the Ist of January they had
reduced the fares on the suburban lines for 15 miles
round London. The price of third-class return
tickets had been nearly two fares ; they had lately
reduced them to one fare and a half, but the reduc-
tion had not been long enough in operation to form
an opinion as to the result. With the revival of
trade, economy in every department, and the closing
of the capital account—(hear, hear) —they would
soon find themselves in a much letter position.
The South Eastern and South Western lines had
also felt the effects of the depression of trade. The
company was burdened with a mass of useless capi-
tal. They had expended £18,000,000, of wiiich
19,000,000 was uselessly expended, and the oel)
chance they had was to incur no further liability,
and to abandon the Surrey awl Suss, x and other
lines which woul:I not pay their working expenses.
They were already losing £35,000 a year by work-

ing 100 miles of railway that had cost them between
£3,000,000 and £4,000,000. The London and
Hastings traffic was about £90,000 a year, and they
got one-third of it under agreement with the South
Eastern Company. The Surrey and Sussex line was
projected to get half the Hastings traffic—or say
£45,000 a year gross traffic. The company had now
£30,000 of it, and if that line had been made by
preference capital the utmost they could have got in
addition to the present traffic would be £15,000 groan
towards paying £120,000 a year on the requisite
capital at 5 per cent. The least they could expect
Parliament to do would be to release them from such
lines as the Survey and Sussex. If they could
have protected themselves as other traders they
would have amalgarnattd with the South Eastern
Company, and the result would have been that the
shareholders would have had 20e. added to their
dividend, and that would have added £1,360,000 to
the value of their ordinary stock. Parliament had
refused to sanction the amalgamation with the
South Eastern unless certain conditions were com-
plied with, which the South Eastern rejected, and
so the Amalgamation Bill was withdrawn. The'
company paid £50,000 a year for poor rates, from
which they derived no advantage, and yet Parlia-
ment had withheld from them that measure of jus-
tice. He would be happy to answer any questions,
and concluded by moving the adoption of the
report.

Mr. J. LEVY seconied the motion.

Mr. SAMUDA contended at some length that the
management was not so good as it ought to be;
that the increase of traffic in the past year was only
£4,000, while on the South Eastern the increase
had been £54,000, and on the South Western
£64,000. He complained that the solicitors' bills
amounted to £7,000, and recommended that a law
clerk should be employed, as was done by the Lon-
don and North Western Railway Company.
Mr. WOOD proposed a resolution to the effect
that a petition be presented to both Houses Of
Parliament, fraying the adoption of the recom-
mendations of the Royal Commissioners iu their
report of 1867 that the liability of railway com-
panies be limited for each class of passengers to
certain amount. He said that it would be more
favourable to the company than the amount sug-
gested by the chairman. The liability would be
reduced to a fixed sum of £lOO for those who paid
ld. per mile, and to £3OO for those who paid faros
of 3d. per mile.
Mr. C. LnGG said he would second the motion.
He wished to know how it was that the outstanding
accounts amounted to £156,000, while the whole of
•the goods traffic amounted to only £144,000.
After some observations by Mr. Wilson, Mr•
Cohen, Mr. Adams, and other shareholders,
The CHAIRMAN replied that if ever a question of
want of confidence in the directors were to present
itself seriously, the whole of the Board would be
willing and anxious to take the opinion of the share-
holders. But as long as they foitnd they had the
support of a decided majority of the shareholders
they would continue to carry out their policy. The
law charges for the past half-year amounted to
£8,104, and for the five years preceding the ap-
pointment of the present Board the law charges
amounted to £250,000, or £50,000 a year, but now
an arrangement had been made with Messrs. Baxter,
Rose, and Co. for a fixed sum, including every-
thing but actual disbursements. It embraced the
cost of looking after the rating and prosecuting
appeals. The amount of outstanding accounts was
£145,000 of which £45,000 was a claim against the
London, Chatham,'and Dover Company for divi-
sion of traffic and part of the Parliamentary ex-
penses of last session. There was another consider-
able sum unsettled with the South Western Com-
pany in.'respect of the Wimbledon line, making,
together, about half the amount outstanding. TO
block system was being introduced over their lines
and had been iu operation some time at important
places.

Resolutions were passed adopting the report ;
declaring a dividend of 103. per cent. for the pa=t
half-year ; authorising the conversion of the 4:i
per cent. £2O preference stock; confirming the
forfeiture of certain shares; re-electing Mr. S•
Laing, Lord G. G. Lennox, M.P., and Mr. G
Wythos, the retiring directors j ancl also Mr. (74514
tne retiring aucutor.
the petition to both Houses of Parliament, pro"
posed by Mr. WooD, was approved.
The meeting was then wade special, and, on the
motion of Mr. C. CHILD, the consideration of the
agreement between the London, BrightJu, and
South Coast Railway Company and the Sot-It'll
Eastern Company for a division of competitive
traffic was postponed for a month. The agree'
'neat for working the East London Railway iv3g
approved.

Resolutions were also passed approving a bill to
enlarge the powers of the East London Railway
Company and to raise further money ; and also E 1
bill to authorise the London, Brighton, and Soot°
Coast Railway Company to abandon the Sorrel
and Sussex Junction Railway, to improve the COra'
munication to Eastbourne, and to sanction agreemeats between them and the South Eastern
way Company.
The proceedings concluded with a vote of thato
to the chairman.