The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-19

company and is now engaged in ac- duiring. under the instructions of the Secretary of War, the outstanding stock of the company for the govern ment Mir. Cromwell had bought thirty shares of the stock for himself several years ago.
 Have you transferred those shares to the United states?' asked Mir. Town send.
 'oTwenty-nine of them. have retain ed one share for qualification as director
 MT. Cromwell stated that the Panama Railroad Company positively had no connection whatever with the trans continental railways of this country. Mir. Townsend: Have any dividends ben declared by the board of directors"
 one. the 5 per cent of Februry l., 1905."
 MT. ,Esch: what was the share of the government dividend?". '-The United States received in cash on February 1st this year the sum of | $3s4.s36.
 MT. Townsend: gro whom was that paidY'
 "All of this sum was paid by check to the Secretary of War as q dividend on the stock standing in his name. with the exception of dividend on ninety-four shares in the nanae of Ad- miral Walker, chairman. of the canal commission. which dividend was paid to him directly. Dividend on the other remaining shares was paid directly to the order of the seven gentlemen in whose name they respectively stand.
 Mir. Cromwell explained that he had purchased for the government 6,S66 shares of this stock. since then" he continued "the Isthmian Canal Commis- sion has purchase 101 shares. making the present ownership of the govern ment 6.9s7 shares leaving outstanding l,013 shares"
 MT. Townsend: "You included seven of those shares held individually by the members of the canal commissioner Yes"
 Admiral walkers Purchase. Mfr. Cromwell then zAAted that Ad- miral Walker had individually first ac- quired one share of the railroad stocls to qualify himself as a director. He had first purchased in the open market 100 shares for the commission and transferred one shares to each of the other seven members of the Commits sion. leaving in his name ninety-four shares.
 Mir. Townsend asked Mir. Cromwell if he had consulted in regard to the payment of per diem fees to the diree- tor-commissioners, and he replied that he had not.
 MT. Cromwell went into an extend ed account of the operation of the road from the standpoint of It's earn ing capacity. He regarded it as sn excellent paying railroad property in comparison with any road in the Uni- ted States. It began operation in 1Ss2 and has earned from that time to No- vember 30, 1904, $3S,S59,354. In 1867 1t assumed a bonded indebtedness of 4,oO0, ,0O0 to mature in 1897. At the latter date these bonds were all taken up and a debt of S4.000,000 was as- sumed. This latter debt has been re~ duced by application of the earnings Of the road to the acquisition of the honds until at present 1t amounts to 1 sa,37e.000. These bonds bear interest at 1-2 per cent Mir. Cromwell said that in hig capacity as one of the fiscal l commissioners Of the Panama Sovern- mefik he had invested l,o00.00O of the funds of that Hovernment tn these bonlds. He was very much averses if the well being of the road was to be considered, to disseminating the oper. ation of the steamship line from New York to Colon.
 Attention was called to the fixed charges which it was necessary for the road to earn continually. These at present amount to $500,00O year. From this they will be reduced grad ually to S400.00O 0 year. at which fig- ure they will remain indefinitely. Fees for Attendance.
 Regarding the question of fees for attendance accepted by the Isthmian Canal Commissioners as directors of the Panama Railroad, Admiral Walker. chairman of the commission, today said:
 Every corporation pays attendance fees to it's directors. When the mem bers of the Canal Commission were made directors of the Panama Rail- road Company some of the commission CTS thought that they were entitled to these fees and others thought not. As chairman of the committee I went to President Roosevelt and told him that under the Presidents order there was a difference of opinions among the members of the Canal Commission as to whether they should accept the at tendance fees. The President said that the matter was too small to talk about.
 All of the members of the Canal Commission, when told of the Presi- dents opinion, did take fees. There have been two meetings months. There is no law that prohibits the members of the commission from accepting such fees. The only hesitation was as to the terms of the Presidents order One day a NewYork man met me, told me he owned 100 shares of the stock and wanted to know if I wanted to buy them. consulted Secretary Taft and he said that he had better buy 1t and told him that we should pay for it at par. Secretary Taft agreed to this and I arranged for the purchase. the stock was turned over to me and the treasurer of the commission, Admiral Kenny, paid the $1O,0O0 for it. gave six of the shares to the other members of the commission (that is one to each), and had 94 left in my name as chair man. All this stock is held in trust for the United States. All of these shares belong to the government and no member of the commission holds any of the stock personally or to his own profit in any way. The first divi- dend was recently declared and the checks hereunder arrived for the com missioners who were here in the city"