The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-10 00:00:00

the chair.
The notice convening the meeting having been

~.-

read,
The CIIAIR3IAN said that this preliminary meet-
ing had been called for the purpose of devising
means to prevent the further outlay of capital, and
to induce the shareholders to adopt a decided course
of action for the protection of their property. He
would chiefly confine his observations to the propo-
sal of the directors ou the 16th inst. to take over
three other railway undertakings—the West Sussex
Junction, the Chichester and Midhurst, and the
Surrey and Sussex Junction Railways. He did not
suppose that the first mentioned line was a very
heavy matter. The Surrey and Sussex Bill pro-
posed to raise additional cipital of £1,380,000, to-
wards which £244,000 had been subscribed, leaving
5,1,135,000 ; the capital of the Chichester and Mid-
burst was £411,000, of which £35,200 had been
subscribed, leaving £375,000, and the West Sussex
a capital of £333,200, of which £lO,OOO had been
subscribed, leaving much more than £1,000,000 of
additional capital to be raised kir those under-
takings. In _November last the directors assured
the shareholders that, with the exception of the out-
lay of a very small sum, the directors would not
promote any new line ; but they now asked them
to sanction the taking over of three new lines he
had mentioned. They were told that the Surrey
and Sussex Junction was not a new scheme, yet he
considered the scheme now proposed in reference to
it was entirely new. They were told in the 11th
paragraph of the London, Brighton, and South
Coast Report of July, 1865, that the Surrey and
Sussex line was promoted by an independent com-
pany, and intended to run from a point one mile
south of Croydon to Tunbridge Wells, and that the
directors, feeling that it was a useful scheme, had
entered into a working arrangement with that com-
pany. In the following April the shareholders
were asked to approve a subscription to that line in
order to forward the works. Every one supposed
that the line was promoted by an independent
company, but it subsequently appeared that the
Brighton company would have to subscribe the whole
of the capital for that line. At the next meeting
they were told that the Surrey and Sussex would give
the company a third line to Brighton. He thought
the shareholders were not bound in any way to take
over that line, which he did not suppose would be a
paying line. (No, no.) The Chichester and Midhurst
certainly would not pay, neither would the other.
The Surrey and the Sussex would be a competing
line, would be the fifth line to Tunbridge-wells, and
render their own line from the Three Bridges to
Tunbridge-wells almost worthless. It was proposed
not only to take over those three undertakings, but
all their liabilities, unless the shareholders could put
a stop to it. It was proposed to take over those
lines at par. He feared that the directors were inte-
rested in those lines, that they were directors' lines,
and that they wanted the company to invest their
money in them. The company had better have
nothing to do with those lines, because if they did
they would find it a very costly matter to abandon
them, should that course be deemed expedient. They
would be opposed by the landowners, and have not
only to pay a large amount of compensation, but pro-
bably £5O a day in perpetuity. The Kemp Town
Extension at Brighton would be no convenience to
the public, and would cost £200,000. There was the
Ouse Valley line, one half of which was to be aban-
doned ; and there were other lines equally useless
that ought never to have been made. In 1857 the
capital of the company amounted to £7,797,000, but
at the end of 1866 it amounted to £16,462,191,
showing an increase of 111 per cent. in capital, while
the revenue in 1857 amounted to £446,000, and in
the past half-year to £503,060, showing an increase
of only £76,420, or only 17 per cent. and a fraction.
He contended that the 2 per cent. for the past half-
year had not been earned. There were many items
charged against capital that ought to have been
charged against revenue ; £84,000 was charged to
capital for interest on unproductive capital, and
£20,425 for fighting in Parliament against the new
Brighton line was also charged to capital. They
had charged £91,000 for new locomotive engines to
capital, and nothing to revenue for renewing old
ones. In that way they made a dividend. A large
amount of the preference capital was being placed
at 90 per cent., and some, he was told, at 88 ; so
that out of £1,000,000 issued the company would
not receive more than £900,000. He estimated that
the traffic for the present year would not exceed
£1,270,000, and that the working, &c., expenses
would be about £727,000, leaving £543,000 surplus
revenue ; and as the preference charges would be
£519,996, he supposed the company would not have
more than £23,000 for ordinary dividend. So
there was encouragement to take over new lines,
and they must stop everything in the shape of capital
expenditure. They must, in fact, speedily decide
on a mode of action to stop those people who now
had the management of their affairs. He had been
informed that some large shareholders had recently
met the directors, and after some conversation rushed
out of the room, and soon after the price of the
shares dropped considerably. (Cheers.)
Col. MILLER, M.P., said that, under the circum-
stances, the directors had not anything tempting to
offer. The shareholders must be aware of the neces-
sity of the case, and those who called the present
meeting were justified in so doing. He had felt it his
duty to protest against the policy of the directors.
(Hear.) He then adverted to the large increase of the
capital in the past ten years, and the very small in-
crease of revenue in proportion to the large increase
of capital. That, he thought, was enough to con-
vince directors as well as shareholders that the policy
of railway extension in that direction was a wrong
one. The constitution of railway boards was very
imperfect; they seemed to be very much influenced
in their proceedings by engineers, lawyers, secre-
taries, and other persons ; and thus often lost
sight of the commercial principle which ought to
guide them. The bit-by-bit legislation had done
immense injury to railway property, instead of deal-
ing with it in a comprehensive manner, and sane-
tioning lines that would not only be valuable to the
country but profitable to the shareholders. (Hear.)
He then adverted to the unprofitable nature of some
of the lines constructed by the company, and stated
-that if the company went on in its present cour.e
they would soon arrive at a point when there would
not be a penny of dividend for the ordinary capital.
Had concluded by moving a resolution to the effect