The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-07 00:00:00

Railway and Other Companies.

PENINSUAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVI-
GATION.

The annual general meeting of this company was
held yesterday at the offices, Leadenhall-street ;
Mr. P. D. Hadow, the deputy-chairman, presided.
Mr. C. W. HOWELL, the secretary, read the re-
port, which stated that the company stood possessed
on Sept. 30 last of stock in ships, less the amount
deducted for depreciation, £3,043,164; also of lease-
hold and freehold property in England and docks
and premises at Calcutta, Bombay, Hongkong,
Singapore, and other stations, £259,090 ; stock of
coals, naval and victualling stores, amounting to
£473,856 ; also cash at bankers, investments, bills
receivable, balances in agents' hands, and debts due
to. the company, £368,181, making the total assets
£4,144,290. The capital received from proprietors
at that date amounted to £2,300,000, on debentures
to £626,500, and in anticipation of the ninth and
tenth instalments £34,605; total capital £2,961,105.
The liabilities of the company in bills payable and
otherwise amounted to £724,171, making the total
capital and liabilities £3,685,276, showing a surplus
of £159,015. The revenue account showed that
the gross receipts or income of the company, from
freight, passage-money, postal service contracts,
and other sources, amounted for the 12 months
ending Sept. 30 last to £2,243,076. The expendi-
ture and charges on revenue, including interest on
debentures, with the reserve for insurance, and out-
lay for wear and tear, and renewal of ships, for the
same period, amounted to £2,094,493, leaving a net
profit of £148,583. From this was deducted
£77,000 for dividend of 3i per cent. for the half-
year ending March 31, and £67,500 for the half-
year's dividend now recommended at 3 per cent.,
leaving a balance of £4,083. The annual premium
of 5 per cent. on the estimated value of the float-
ing property of the company, covering ordinary
sea risks and credited to the proprietors' under-
writing account for the year ending Sept. 30, 1866,
was £llO,OOO. From this was deducted value
of steamship Jeddo, wrecked on the Choul Bader
Reef in February last (less depreciation) £52,200 ;
also damage to the company's property at Calcutta
by the cycicne in October, 1864, £770 ; leaving a
balance of £56,030, out of which it was proposed to
pay the proprietors at the rate of 2 per cent., leav-
bg £363 for the reserve fund, which would then
amount to £450,015. The tabular statement of the
company's fleet showed that there were 10 ships—
five screw and five paddlewheel—on the Mediter-
ranean service ; seven screw on the Calcutta and
Suez line ; 18 screw on the Bombay and Suez and
Bombay and China lines ; four screw on the Ceylon
and Sydney line, and two paddle and five screw on
the Hong Kong and Shanghai, China Coast, and
Japan lines, making together 46 ships, aggregate
tonnage 74,341 tons and 16,580 horse-power.
There were five ships under repair of an aggregate
tonnage of 8,928 tons and 2,300-horse power.
These, together with steam-tugs, transport, store,
and Coal ships, amounted in the aggregate to 99,963
tons Customs' measurement, and to 19,655-horse
power. The Surat, after performing a complete
voyage on the Southampton and Mediterranean
lines, during which she steamed 8,858 miles, at an
average rate of 11 knots per hour, was despatched
to Calcutta, via the Cape, on the 7th ult., for ser-
vice between that place and Suez. The Avoca,
Malacca, and Sunda had likewise been finished, and
sent to the East. The Avoca made the passage from
Southampton to Bombay in 65 days, the Malacca in
55 days, and the Sunda in 58 days. The Geelong,
left Southampton for Bombay on the 9th June, and
arrived out on 30th July in 51 days. All those
voyages were made under easy steam. The Candia,
Nubia, and Delta were again in active service, each
having received new boilers and a thorough repair
and refit. The first brought to Suez, two days
within the contract time, the Calcutta and China
mails, delivered on the 27th ult. The Granada had
been sold to one of the princes cf Japan on advan-
tageous terms. The number of vessels under ex-
temive repair had of late been unusually large. This
had arisen from the circumstance that many of the
cornuany's ships were built about the same time and
ily for new boilers and a general refit
came round at nearly the same period. Several of
the finest ships—among them the Pera, the Simla,
the Chi::a, the Ceylon, the Nubia, the Candia, the
Nepaul, the Benares, the Erneu, the Salsette, and
the Delta—had now undergone a complete renewal,
and come had still to be laid up for tile same Fir-
The repa:rs and renewals of the last nine of

the 1)

pose
t

ships earns into the accounts f,..r the financial
year, and the consequence was that the amount ex-
pended in that way had exceeded the total of that
spent in repairs and renewals, together with the sum
set apart for depreciation in former years, when the
repairs had been of the average amount. For the
year 1865 the cost of repairs stood at £294,459,
and the atnount set apart for depreciation was
£115,000, making together £409,459. In the ac-
counts for the present year the amount expended in
repairs and renewals alone had reached the unusual
sum of £439,400, but as the vessels repaired and
renewed during this awl the Preceding year had
been rendered in many respects as good as new, the
directors had not considered it necessary to charge'
any reserve for depreciation against the revenue of
the last financial year.
The Board lookingbt forward
to to the possibility that the company nii
invited to submit tenders for new services, they con-
sequently petitioned her Majesty in Council for a
supplemental charter, authorising an ad.lition of
£1,000,000 to the present capital of the company,
by the creation and issue of 20,009 new shares of
£5O each. The directors greatly regretted the loss
by death of two members of the Board in the last
half-year, Mr. Plowden and Capt. Nairne, who had
discharged their duties with great assiduity. The
vacancies, in accordance with the deed of settlement,
were filled up by the appointment of Mr. E.
Thornton, C. 8., and Mr. G. C. L'Estrange, sub-
ject to the approval of the proprietors. The Board
proposed, prior to the half-yearly meeting next June,
to nominate Mr. 11. Bayley, now one of the assistant
managers, to the post of director. The Indian and
China mail contracts taken in 1853 and 18b4 were
terminable by the Government or the company
on 12 months' notice, and the existing Australian
contract, which commenced in February last, was
terminable in like manner on two years' notice.
Those contracts comprised the whole of the mail
services now worked by the company. Ihe Parlia-
mentary Committee of 1866, after a most searching
inquiry, recorded their " opinion that the services
under the several contracts to which reference had
been made had been weliperformed," and the direc-
tors felt warranted in stating that the facts and evi-
dence submitted to them could have led to no other
conclusion. The subject was now under the consi-
deration of the several departments of the Govern-
ment. The directors had completed their arrange-
ments for a trial of extra voyages between Bombay
and Suez; the first steamer would leave Bombay on
;Tan. 19, and Suez about Feb. 5, in correspondence
with the steamers to leave Southampton on the 20th,
and Marseilles on the 28th January. A service four
times a month would then be temporarily estab-
lished. In the face of the existingstagnation of trade
with the East, the directors congratulated the pro-
prietors on the fact that they were enabled to recom-
mend a dividend of 3 per cent. for the last half-year,
mak in ,
with 31 per
g
cent. declared in June last and
21 per cent. from the underwriting account, a total
of 9 per cent. for the year. The amounts now avail-
able would be—for divid.l-id 3. pet cent., and under-
.;:ount 2'; per cent., together 51 per cent.,
oI meome-tax, payable in one warrant on Fri-

writing ac

day, 28th inst
The CEIAIIIMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, expressed regret that Mr. Anderson, the
was unable to attend in his place that day
ence of illness. It was an interesting
meeting in respect of its being 25 years since the
first annual niceting of the cAnpany was held in St.
Mary-axe, when the company had a much smaller
undertaking than at present. It bad been carried
out from the commencement with prudence in
every way, and with due enterprise. The founders
of the undertaking would, he trusted, bealways held
in grateful remembrance. The company had been of
vast importance to the country by extending com-
merce to the East. his worthy friend the secre-
tary, had compiled an account of the progress of the