The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-07 00:00:00

through their hands. They were losers by the last hear.) Ile did not propose to follow the tight
Derby of a very large sum—over £20,000, and honourable gentleman through all his blunders
every claim upon them was paid in the most hon- and mistakes; but he must protest against
ourable manner. the unjustifiable insinuation which he pro-
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine said he was perfectly ceeded to make when he said it would have
satisfied with what had been said by his learned been easy for the telegraph companies to have
friend. Mr. Harding's object in bringing the kept down their expenditure for the year, with the
action was not to obtain money, but to clear his i view of making their profits appear larger. He (the
character. It was now admitted that there was not chairman) had felt most indignant at this, and he
the least ground for the imputation that had been must say he thought it was a scandalous thing that
cast upon him of being a defaulter, and he might a member should be alloy ed to use his privilege to
say that he was, in point of fact, a man of fortune. insult a body of gentlemen in this fashion, by in-
Baron Martin said he was of opinion that the sinuating that they would falsify their accounts for
matter had ended in a most satisfactory manner. the purpose of cheating the Government. The hon.
It was clear that the defendants were not justified gentleman concluded by moving the adoption of the
in what they had done. Perhaps under tLe cir- report and accounts presented.
cumstances there might be some excuse, but it Mr. MICKLETII WAITE, deputy chairman,seconded
was clear that there was no legal justification for the motion, which was carried unaninraisly.
their conduct. The CHAIRMAN then moved that a dividend be
A verdict for 40s. was then recorded, and his declared of £5 per cent.. free of income tax, for
lordship certified that it was a fit case to be triei by the half-year ending 30th June, and. a dividend at
a special jury. the same rate of Bs. per share upon the new £lO
This concluded the business, and Baron Martin shares of the company upon which £8 has been
thanked the special jurymen for their punctual at- paid up.
tendance, observing that not a moment had been A Proprietor referred to the existence of a small
lost during the assizes by special jurymen not being debenture debt, and said he thought Government
a attendance. I ought to provide the means of paying the interest
upon this if they took away the means of earning
it. There was also no clause in the Act to protect
them from loss in being sued by other companies
for non-performance of agreements. A court of
equity might relieve them, under the circumstances,
from specific performance of contract, but not from
damages incurred through breach of contract.
The Chairman said that it had been decided
at the meeting before last that they should get
rid of their debenture debt, and this had accord-
ingly been done, with the exception of the small
amount of £7,550, which fell due within the
next twelve months, and would also be paid
off. With respect to the other point, the Govern-
ment had already made terms and agreements with
the various companies, and all that was to be done
was to hand over the concern to them to carry out
all contracts made in the same manner as before.
The matter should, however, be laid before the legal
advisers of the company, and if it was possible to
get a clause of that nature inserted in the act, it
should be done. Of course, if the money bill did
not pass is the next Parliament, the whole agree-
ment, as stated in the report, would be void.
The motion was then agreed to, and thanks
having been voted to the Chairman, the meeting

ELECTRIC AND INTERNATIONAL TELE
GRAPH COMPANY.

The forty-fifth half-yearly general meeting of
this company was held yesterday in the offices,
Telegraph-street, Aloorgate-street, at two o'clock.
The lion. R. Grimstone, chairman of the company,

presided.
The report stated the receipts for the half year
ending 30th June at £172,828 against £167,461
for the half-year ending June, 1867, and the net

balance at £71,245, a. 3 compared with £68,995.

The CHAIRMAN said that since their last meeting
in that room, some six months ago, he could assure
them that the directors of this company had passed

a very anxious time. As they were aware, a bill
had been before Parliament to enable the Post-
master-General to acquire the telegraphs of the
kingdom, and that bill contained provisions most
inimical to their interests. He was not going

to consider the question whether it was just to in-
terfere with private enterprise, nor whether it was
a right thing that the Government should have what
was virtually a monopoly of the telegraphs, because
Parliament had decided that question, and he should
therefore confine himself to a few words of expla-

separated.

nation as to the price they were to get for their pro-
perty. In the first instance, the promoters of the
measure urged that they ought to be satisfied with
the market price of their shares, and ten per cent.
additional for compulsory purchase, and, on the
broad principle that a thing was worth what it
would fetch. such an offer might at the first blush

RAILWAY AND OTHER COMPANIES.

LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN.

With a view of making the public aware, at the
earliest period practicable, of the dividend likely to
be declared by this company at the ensuing general
meeting, Mr. S. Reay, the secretary, states that the
accounts, though not yet finally audited or approved
by the Board of Directors, show a balance sufficient
to admit of a dividend for the past half-year at the
rate of 5 per cent. per annum.

appear reasonable, but in reality it was not
so. In order to have a market price,
there must first be a market, and there
were numbers of shares in that city in which there

were no dealings whatever, and for which
therefore there was properly no market price. Take,
for instance, a share in the New River Company,
which returned its fortunate possessor £l,OOO a
year; there were no dealings in such shares, and if
they came to be sold, the price must, of course, be
ruled by the necessity of the seller. In their own
stock the dealings were few and far between. Not
three per cent. changed hands in the course of a
year, and when a transaction took place, it was
generally a sale by executors, in consequence of a
death, and therefore the price of their shares in the
market was purely nominal. If their dividends
were honestly earned, £l7O, or thereabouts, could
not be the right price of their shares ; and
if they had accepted such an offer, it would
have been tantamount to admitting that their ac-
counts were not correct. If they were correct, £l7O
was not a right price ; if they they were not correct,
how was it that he and other directors held in their
hands close upon £140,000 of undivided profits ?
(hear, hear.) That was more than sufficient to pay
a whole year's dividend in advance, and therefore
he was perfectly justified in telling the Chancellor
of the Exchequer that their dividends at 10 per
cent. was as safe as his own at 3 per cent. Under
these circumstances it was not likely they should
accept the offer of 10 per cent. over and above
the market price, and they were requested by
the Post-office authorities to make some .coun-
ter offer, which they dil. They stated that
the only true way of arriving at the value of
their shares was to take a certain number of
years' purchase, and they proposed to act on
the precedent Government had itself set in the
case of the Irish railways, when they offered 25
per cent. purchase. Well, the Government was not
disposed to treat them as liberally as they had done
the Irish railways, and the negotiation appeared to
fall through ; but on the morning of the 26th June
he received a letter from Mr. Scudamore, submit-
ting a proposal for the acquisition of their pro-
perty, at twenty years' purchase of the present net
profits, and on the 30th of the same month he re-
plied to that proposal, accepting it in the name of
his brother directors. The Act for that purpose
accordingly passed both Houses, and received the
royal assent. He hoped that no gentleman
would think it necessary to discuss the terms
on the present occasion, whether they were satis-
fied with them or not, as they would have to
call a special meeting, at which they would
have to say whether those terms were to be ac-
cepted or not, and anything said by any one
now, whether on one side of the table or the other,
would be premature, and might be used against him
before the arbitrator. He hoped, therefore, that no
one would try to dig a pitfall for himself to tumble
into. (Hear, hear.) In the, discussion that took
place in the House of Commons, those terms were
designated as extravagant and improvident by the
member for the City, Mr. Goschen ; but when a
gentleman deserted trade for politics, his figures
very often gave way to fastion, and Mr. Goschen's
real objection to the bill was that it was brought in
by Mr. Hunt, and not by himself. Mr. Goschen be-
gan by stating that Mr. Scudamore was over-san-
guine in his estimate of 6,000,000 messages a year,
and went into some figures to show that the number
in 1867 was only 5,500,000. Now they had not got
the full returns from the different telegraph compa-
nies to show the receipts of 1867, but they had
those of 1866, and in that year, exclusive of press
messages, of which there was an enormous number,
the messages amounted to 6,170,000. (Hear, hear.)
Their own returns for last year showed an increase
of 200,000, and the returns from other companies
shored the usual average increase upon the pre-
vious year. There was, therefore, every reason to
suppose that the messages of 1867 out-topped
those of 1866 ; but he could explain the source of
the miscalculation. Mr. Goschen had taken the
gross money receipts of the various companies, and
then divided them by ls. 11d., which he was pleased
to assume as the average price of a message.
But the true average price happened to be ls.
51., so that the right hon. gentleman made a
miscalculation of 6d. upon every message ; but how
he had arrived at a total of £5,500,000 he believed
even Mr. Bidder himself could not explain. The
right hon. gentleman next proceeded to value their
property in the same arbitrary way, assuming £l5O
as the market price of their shares, whereas he ha 'l
thought every man was aware that, up to the 24th
May last, the real market price was £172 10s. The
difference between tho;e two prices, calculated on
the price of their stock, was £270,000 ; and with
10 per cent. additional for com?ulsory purchase,
£297,000, so that the valuation was less by this
amount than Mr. S3ll tonore's original proposal,
which they had refused without hesitation, and
which everybody stated to be grossly inade-
quate. (Hear, hear.) The right lion. gentleman
then asked, in a triumphant tone, who ever
heard of giving twenty years' purchase for au un-
dertaking which was making a net profit of 13
or 14 per cent. ? Well, they did not want to
part with their. undertaking. All that they asked
was to be left alone. But that was the price of-
fered them by those who were forcing them to
sell. (Hear, hear.) Ile would ask the right hon.
gentleman in return, who ever heard of compelling
people to sell their property, and then to take a
great deal less than it was worth? (Hear,