The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-28 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER.
The adjourned half-yearly general meeting of this
company was held yesterday at the Victoria Railway
Station, Pimlico ; Lord Harris, the chairman, pre-
sided.

Mr. G. W. BROOKE, the assistant-secretary, read
the notice of adjournment.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving that the report and
statement of accounts be received and adopted, said

it was hardly necessary for him to explain that the
Board had deemed it requisite to adjourn the half-

yearly meeting from time to time since February
last, being, under the peculiar circumstances of the
company, most anxious to take the shareholders into
their confidence as to the plain they proposed for

improving the position of the company. A bill had
been introduced into Parliament embodying the
views of the directors for attaining that end. Dur-

ing the progress of the bill the Board had endea-
voured to come to an arrangement with the deben-
ture-holders' committee, who were also promoting a
bill with a view to promote the best interests of the
shareholders and debenture holders. The opinion
of the Board was that the debenture holders
should, if possible, unite with them. It was
important that the bondholders' interests should
be maintained, and it was only by that means
they could ask Parliament to authorise the bill for
the settlement of their affairs. The committee ou
the bill had come to a resolution as between the
debenture holders and the company, which
he felt was a delicate matter in the present

position of the Bill. That board were anxious the
shareholders should place confidence in them to
carry out the views which they believed would be
in accordance with the interests of the company.
The report of the directors was issued to the share-

holders some months ago, and the accounts were
based on the figures given by the committee of in-
vestigation, and he believed they were correct. He
had very little to state in addition to the report.

Their great misfortune was that the works of the
company had not been completed, but the traffic
had increased where the necessary facilities had
been provided, and they had since been able to
carry on the traffic better than they did previously.
Mr. 110DGKINSON, M.P., deputy chairman, se-
conded the motion for the adoption of the report.
lie said the accounts had been a long time before

the shareholders, and they were in a very simple
and intelligible form. The capital account was
based on the appendix to the committee's report,
with such amendments as further investigation re-
quired between the different sections. As regarded
the revenue account, they had not arrived at a
satisfactory result. The revenue of most railways
suffered during the last half of 1866 : it was affected
by the financial crisis, bad weather last autumn, the
war in Germany and Italy, and other operations on
the Continent. That was sufficient to account for
the falling off in the estimates of traffic that had
been prepared. When the directors' Parliamentary
scheme for relieving the company from its diffi-
culties was brought out they could not attend to
anything else for a long time, and consequently the
working expenses were high. The traffic was in
its infancy, and it was difficult to develope it in
consequence of the serious embarrassments of the
company. The board of directors and officers of the
4)ompany were too much engaged with other things
to improve the traffic, but if the company could be
put in a position to develope the traffic, and reduce
the working expenses together with an efficient
working of the line, the results would be very im-
portant for the undertaking. They had so far been
enabled to redeem the character of the line by good
management in the working of the traffic that he be-
lieved no line stood better than the Chatham and
Dover in that respect. He had had a great deal to
do this session with the Parliamentary proceedings.
At the present moment the bill was before the com-
mittee, and would come on again to-morrow. He
did not wish to say anything that might prejudice
their case. He then explained that the directors'
Parliamentary scheme was for raising £1,500,000
to pay off arrears of interest due to debenture- holders,
to p ty creditors 20s. in the pound, and to complete
certain works for the development of the traffic. He
bad told them on a former occasion that Parliament
would never _sanction the placing of new debentures
over the debenture-holders, unless every individual
gave his consent ; but to get that consent would be
impossible. lle looked on debenture-holdcrs, to a
certain extent, as partners; al they would all par-
ticipate in the improvement of the property, it
ought to be sufficient in their case that a large ma-
jority should bind the minority, which was the prin-
ciple of a bill now before Parliament for dealing
with railway property. It provided that three-
fourths of the creditors in value should be the re-
quisite majority, and be thought it would not be too
much to ask Parliament to grant them a similar
power in their hill, but perhaps they would not see
it in that light. The debenture-holders had pre-
pared a scheme in which they proposed placing a
smaller sum over their heads than that proposed by
the directors. Another section, represented by Mr.
Bagot, did not propose to raise any capital, but
they could not settle with the creditors without