The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-29 00:00:00

CALEDONIAN RAILWAY.

- -
The usual half-yearly general meeting of the pro-
prietors of the Caledonian Railway was held )eiterday
in the Frcemasona'•hall; th" Honourable Captain E.
Plunkett, R.N., chairman of the board of directors, in
the chair.

The advertisement convening the meeting having
been read, and the minutes of previous meetings con-
firmed, the report of the directors, which has already
appeared in The Sun, was submitted to the proprietor,.
The CHAIRMAN moved the adoption of the report and
accounts, but before he made any observations upon
them he called upon
Tie SECRETARY to read the following note of the au-
ditors, which had only been received this morning:—
"The time allowed by the statute will only permit of
a very superficial examination if these voluminous ac-
counts, but the balance-sheet truly representa the whole
of the ledger balances, both capittl and revenue. I❑ the
course of auditing the accounts my attention was at-
tracted by the large sums paid by the treasurer to the
share-office for stamps, the vouchers of which are very
imperfect. The periodical movements in the purchase
end division of stock, as recorded in the share trunstcr•
book, for the purpose of voting in the mearii,g, would
also appear to demand the attention-if the shareholders,
and the adoption of some resolution to limit the votes for
.rock only, which has been in tie hands of the possessors
three months."

The CHAIRMAN then proceeded to observe that it was
due to the reputation of the board to state what really
did happen with r fereece to the amalgamation of the
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, which bad recently
formed the subject of a discussion in the House of Com
mons. The overture for an amalgamation came from
the chairman of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Company,
iu a letter addressed to the chairman of the late London
comnitte, and when this board came into office, it saw
fit to adopt the principle of the proposed amalgamation,
which was that the gurantee stock of this
concern should be so reduced, as to place
the company in a solvent condition. He should mention,
however, that the board were in perfect ignorance of the
provisions of the Amalgamation Bill, so far as they re-
lated to the manner of dealing with the preferential
shares. They could not have approved of these provi-
sions any more than they could sanction a manifest fraud,
but though it was not right to force the holders of pre-
ferential stock to abandon some of their claims, that end
might be attained by negotiation, and it was to be re-
gretted that the doors of Parliament bad not been left open
to the company. In the language of a celebrated Fretob
diplomatist, had the board agreed to that Bill as it stood
they would have committed something worse than a
crime—they would have committed a blunder; but that
Bill, if it had been carried to a further stage, might have
paved the way to a settlement of this much vexed ques-
tion of preference shares. Many of the remarks of
Honourable Members upon that occasion were most un-
just as reflecting upon the existing board, and in parti-
cular the speech of an Honourable Member who was
attached to the defunct board displayed very bad taste,
knowing as ho must have done that many of his
former colleagues had not only:advocated but practised re-
pudiation. With regard to the question of amalgama-
tion, the directors were decidedly of opinion that it was
for the interest of this concern that they should be on
good terms with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Company,
and, accordingly, in a single hour's good-humoured chat
with that board, they had attained more than their pre-
decessors had done after long and tedious contests, and
an expenditure of a million of money. An agreement
bad been made with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Com-
pany, by which the passenger traffic was to be divided
fairly between the trvo lines, the one taking the north and
south, and the other the east and west traffic. They were
still, however, to compete for the goods traffic, but upon
equal terms, and he need not assure the meeting that
everything would be done on the part of the directors to
secure the faithful and effectual carrying out of that
agreement. Now, with reference to the existing state
of the company, ho was rather afraid the report would
be considered as too candid, but he was one of those who
thought that there ought to be no concealments between
the shareholders and the directors. The position
of affairs, then, was really very serious, and much
caution would be required to get the company
out of its difficulties. The pressing debts of the com-
pany were estimated at 800,000 L, of which 137,000/. was
represented by debentures. and it was greatly to be
regretted that the only remedy which creditors of rail-
way companies had for the nonpayment of their debts
was that ruinous one of killing the goose which laid the
golden eggs. AR interview had therefore been sought
and obtained with the Board of Trade, on the subject of
placing the debenture holders upon a more equitable
footing than they were at present, and from the manner
in which they were received he had no doubt that
something would be done for the relief of railway
companies in that respect. The invested capital in
railways amounted to 300,000,000/., of which the deben-
tures covered a third, or 100,000,0001., and it was clear
from these figures that it was of the utmost importance
that the interest of the debenture holder should be
more assimilated to that of the ordinary shareholder.
Nevertheless, the directors had made such arrangement
as an empty treasury would admit of for meeting
the debentures as they became due, upon terms that
would be advantageous to the company and preserve
good faith with the creditor. He came next to guaran-
teed lines, and at once he had no hesitation in, telling
the meeting that all the guarantees could not be main-
tained. He did not mean to saylihat repudiation would be
the order of the day, because there was a difference be-
tween returning'a man the money or property he had
surrendered anu denying to him any participation in its
benefits or any right to reclaim it. The holder of Pen-
sylvanian bonds would not consider it an act of re-
pudiation to have his money flung back into his
lace, and yet that was precisely what this board pro-
posed to do with regard to several of their guaranteed
lines. They proposed to restore them into the ssf,l keep-
ing of their original holders, and when they looked at
the manner in which the transfer had been male to this
company, the original holders ought to feel themselves
lucky that they could recover possession of their
property on such terms. Many of the leases
and guarantees were carried by the creation of
shares one day to be cancelled the next, and seeing that
these guaranteed lines must sink or fall with the Caledoe
aim line, it wise clear the best policy for them to adopt
i
was to fall n with the ideas and t Tins proposed by the
Caledonian Board. Most of the guarantees were grossly
exorbitant, and whatever parties might say about the
threats of litigation which the Caledonian Board held
out to these guarantees, there was no blinking the mate
ter, parabola' as it might seem, that it was their duty to