The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-02 00:00:00

MORNING SUN

- -
MEETING OF THE BRITISH IRON
COMPANY.

A Special General meeting of the Shareholders of this
Company was held,-,yesterday at the London Tavern,
Btshopsgate-street, in;pursuance of the following requisi-
tion :

" TO THE DIRECTORS OF THE BRITISH IRON COMPANY.
" GENTLEMEN—We, the undersigned Shareholders of
the British Iron Company, in pursuance of the provision
of the Deed of Settlement of the said Company, bearing
date the 28th April, 1825, do hereby require you, the
Directors of the said Company, to call, without delay, a
Special General Meeting of tt e Shareholders at;the Lon-
don Tavern, for the purpose of taking into- consideration
the following resolutions, and confirming the same, pur-
suant to the Deed of Settlement.
" Ist. That a true and correct copy of all thealterations
and additions made in the clauses of the Deed of Settle-
dement of the Company since the 28th April, 1825, to
the present time, be printed and sent to each Shareholder.
" 2d. That the Directors furnish every Shareholder
with the accounts and expenditure at the several works
and establishments for the half-year ending the 30th
June, 1841, upon which the report read to the General
Meeting of the 19th November is founded, and also the
balance sheet made up to the same period.
" 3d. That the Report and Statement of ,Account pro-
duced at the Half-yearly General Meeting, held on Fri.-
day, the 19th November, be rejected. because the same
are neither satistlictory nor explanatory.
" 4th. That the .British Iron, Company be, and is here-
by dissolved, and that a Committee of ten Proprietors
be chosen at this meeting to carry into elli!ct the disso-
lution of the Company in the manner most advantageous
to the interests of the Proprietors in general.
" London, Ist December, 1841.
"W. J. Richardson. "T. Goldsworthy.
W. Jones. W. Atkinson.
John B. Jackson. Abrm. Cohen.
B. G. Maltby. John Tyrrell.
Charles White. J. H. Brown.
J. Thompson. A. Robertson."
The chair was taken at one o'clock by Sir G. G. de
IL Larpent, Bart., M.P.
The CHAIRMAN said that the constant recurrence of
meetings, such as the present; in which questions were
brought forward for discussion on which the sense of
the majority of the Proprietors had been already taken
and recorded, was a circumstance very much calculated
to have a detrimental effect on the interests of the Com-
pany. ' The Company was a trading one. The tendency
of those proceedings, therefore, would be to lower the
value of their property. At the present period the price
of iron was low, the .market was overstocked with a
supply, and the dissolution of the Company and sale of
its property must not only be attended with no good or
profitable consequences to any party, but be effected with
great sacrifice on the part of the Shareholders—par-
ticularly those who had paid up the full amount of their
shares. With respect to the information sought to be
obtained from the Directors by the requisitionists, the
Judge, to whom an application for an order to that effect
was made, had refused to grant it. A motion of a similar

nature had been on a previous occasion made by Major
Richard-son at a; meeting of the Proprietors, and a ballot
having been demanded 1,662 Shareholders recorded
their votes against the motion, and six only in its favour.
That was a pretty decisive expression of the opinion of
_ the Company on the matter. The Directors were always
willing to affisrd every possible information to the Pros
• . prietors, but the present demand for books, papers, &c.,
was refused, because the parties making that demand din
so with the view or rendering those documents ancillary
to their views in the law-suit now pending between cer-
tain Shareholders and the rest of the Company.
Major RteitaansoN said he rose for the purPose of
proposing the resolution which had been read to the
meeting ; but, before he did so, he would first make
some observations on the proceedings upon which they
were founded. He would first e ill the attention Of the
meeting to the Teed of settlement, which had been
printed, and a copy of which might be obtained by every
Shareholder for a few shillings, the cost of its printing,
but for which there were no thanks due to the Direc-
tors ; and he would request the attention of the meeting;
to the statement•he would-lay
.before it, of the various al--
terations which were made in it. It was supposed
that, 'in accordance with the 102 d clause, the number of
Directors should not be less than sixteen, while, in fact,
there had been, for a long time, only seven. How; he
would ask, was this strange made ? And, again, clause
106 declares that the auditors shall never consist of
less than four, whereas they have never been more than
two ; and in .like manner had clauses 102 and 112 been
set aside. He now came to the conduct of the Directors
with regard to Mr. Mott, a gentleman of high
respectability, and a barrister, towards whom they
behaved in the most arbitrary and scandalous
manner ; for, after having purchased thirty shares,
and desired his broker to purchase thirty more, they
• refused to admit him, in the teeth of clauses 137 and
•
141. But what right had they, he would ask, to make
the alterations they had . in the 29th clause ? They
made statements that they had got the opinion of tire
eminent lawyers upon the case of Attwood, but they
kept in the background a part of that opinion, and de-
ceived the Shareholders, to their 'serious detriment.
They petitioned Parliament in 1840, and the names of
the. persons attached to the petition were those of Mr.
Wilson, Mr. ItaVensletw, Mr. Barclay, Mr. Bahney, and
Sir G. G. de H. Larpent. In that petition they state the
capital to be but one million, thereby deceiving the Par-
liament as to the facts ; and upon sash grounds they ob-
tained an Act of Parliament. They either committed a
fraud upon the Parliament or the Shareholders.
„Mr. If. PALME re read the. Act of Parliament, which set
forth the capital to be two millions.
.1-fajur Rico t uosos—That was not au answer to him.--.
(" Oh, oh," and cheers.) it was easy to laugh, but
they would soon find they were laughing on the
wrong side.—([fear, hear.) lie was referred, it
was true, to a rescinding of a resolution of
twelve years' standing, by which it was pretended that
the capital had been doubled,' and the shares raised
• from 501 to 100/. He was also referred to a Report of
May 4, 1838, and in order to ascertain its truth he
went to the Bill-office and asked for a copy of the peti-
tion, by which he found that in March, 1840, two years
afterwards, it was declared that the capital consisted of
1,000,0001., in shares of 501: ,each. But this was not all,
for while the Company were losing 100,0001 a-year
they made dividends, not from the profits, for no
profits were there, but from the capital.—(Hear.) lie
would ask had clause 79 been altered, by which it was
ma,,de imperative to-sell all forfeited shares at the end of
a moisth ? had they not last 50,0001. by not selling
1,161 such shares ? He contended that the resolutions
he was about to , propose were just resolutions, and
every person wishing to know his real position ought
to support him in asking to know what alterations were
made in -the deed of settlement.
The resolutions having been seconded.
Mr. GREEN said he should move as an amendment,
that the resolutions be read on that day six months.
Mr. COHEN inquired :if the gentleman who had just
spoken was the editor of the-Paul Pry ?
Mr. GREEN replied in the negative. He knew no-
thing of the Pad Pry, but he thought it was very in-
esmsistent in the parties now seeking to carry their re-
solutions, after going before a Judge, who refused the
power of calling for the endorsement of the deed. Those
persons came into the Company having few shares as a
body; and for objects which, because of the law of libel,
lie would not state, but which he well knew within him-
self. lie knew one of them to be a holder of only ten
shares, and to have paid in only twenty-five shillings.
He came into the Company, knowing his liability, for the
purpose of becoming a leader of a party.
Major RICHARDSON said lie had nothing to do with
the falsehoods the gentleman was uttering.— (Order. )
The CHAIRMAN said he could not permit such 'lan-
guage while he was in the chair.
Mr. JACKSON--Then motives ought not to he imputed.
. The CcautataN said he considered Mr. Green was
hot wrong in stating what' was the interest of another
in the Company, but if he were wrong it would be com-
petent to Major Richardson to reply. He hoped both
would see the propriety of keeping within the bounds of
fair discussion. •
Mr. GREEN said that what he stated as to the gentle-
man being a holder of ten shares was correct. lie
•
'thought it his duty, looking to •the great interest of the
parties who paid up their calls, to move the amendment
which he did. It appeared from the newspapers that the
-parties had pleaded—they had gone before a Judge—
they had withdrawn their pleas—and the reason they
assigned was that they were. going to plead mores He be-
lieved that there were some ulterior views in_ moving
these- resolutions, and to defeat them he moved his
aciendment to the resolutions.
Mr. KEY seconded the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN said that he wished to call the atten-
tion of the meeting to what had fallen from Major
Mr. Mott. The reason why he
Richardson rtssPecting
had not been athoitted was that he was a defaulter.
Major RICJIARDSON said that was not the case.
Mr. WILKINSON quid that Mr. Mott had paid his calls,
but said he would not pay any more.
The CHAIRMAN said he did not mean anything per-
sonal to Mr. Mott, and he wished that it should be
clearly understood that the only reason for the Directors
acting as they did was, that if they acted otherwise they
would be acting in opposition to the interests of the
Proprietors, and it would be proved by the votes whe-
ther confidence was to be placed in their opinions. With
regard to the amendment, he hoped it would be with.
drawn, as he thought it the better way to meet the re-
solutions with a direct negative.-(Hear, hear.)
The amendment was then withdrawn.
Mr. it. TAYLOR was glad the amendment was with-
&min, because, it' it were nut, it would be the cause of
meeting after meeting. The question was very clear. It
was a question between the body of the Shareholders and
those who had not paid up their culls. Legal proceed-
ings were going on, and it was with a view to prejudice
the interests of the Shareholders that these resolutions
were moved. lie thought the explanation with regard
to Mr. Mott:pevrectly satisfactory.
Maj wlticcartosoa protested against the imputation of
motives, which were igsosantly said to influence the party
with which lie was connect. A.. In answer to what had
fallen from Mr. Green, he woui4 tell that gentleman that
if he multiplied the body of the united Shareholders by
501., he would find it was not so small a sum as lie
imagined. He said also, that if he had only
to pay his own share of the • costs in case
he libelled hint (Major Richardson) he would
not hesitate to state what he knew. Now he
(Major Richardson) would only say if the same proposal
were made by any man of respectability, he would as.
cede to it.—(l7l ear,
hear, and " oh.") lie had said from
the very first, that he only wanted to get out of the cm,
cern, having been unwittingly allured into it. When he
got into it he found it in such a state that he felt the
sooner he got out of it the better, Out of the number
410,14,,
~
ae which he purchased,
he sold twenty. And he
4 , •
•
,),Nari, which cost him 801., besides the costs ;
- - must Shy, if the shares Were now reduced so low
.
alt 24. Cd., "Th-ft-Shareholders were the cause. With re-
gard
itlrs, to the
is ludo
to
theth.drawing of the pleas which had been al-
p• ,c,-4. .,,_. ere not withdrawn for the reason alleged.
--
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A • I.'l. ' '
*