PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION CO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9125, 6 August 1888, Page 6

PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION CO.

The ninety-fifth half-yearly meeting of this Company was held in London on June sth, Mr. Thomas Sutherland, M.P., in the chair. The Chairman, in the course of his speech, said : We never seem to be able to come to an end of building vessels, no matter how many of them we seem to build. I point this out: We build so many of these vessels because we dispose of all our old ones as rapidly as circumstances will permit, and more rapidly, perhaps, than the question of immediate profit and loss would justify, if we were not convinced that that was, and is, the true policy. I would call your attention to this fact that notwithstanding k the ship-building which we have carried out during the last ten years say—we have not, in reality, added to the number of ships actively employed in the Company's service. I find that in the year 1878 we had forty-four vessels actually at work in your service ; and I see that in the year 1888, deducting the three ships which I have mentioned as being sold, we have at the present moment only but with this singular difference that the new vessels amount in tonnage to 80,000 more tons than the vessels of ten years ago. (Hear, hear.) That is a convincing proof, seeing th-it it is necessary to have vessels of such a different typo to what we had ton years ago, of the soundness of the policy which we have pursued, and which we hope i to pursue still further. (Hear, hoar.) Now, gentlemen, \ will just make one or two observations regarding the vessels which wo have recently added to our fleet. In outlast report we announced that the Victoria and Britannia h;ul already commenced their career in the Company's service, and, as you aro aware, these two vessels, combined with the sister ships which have been built at Belfast—the Oceana and Arcadia, seeing that wo have now obtained delivery of the latter, and that they are, in fact, actually at work in our service at the present motnonfr—those four greac vessels amount to something like 126,000 tons in point of tonnage. They are spoken ot commonly enough amongst ourselves as our Jubilee shipe, and they are certainly deserving of special description in one sense, inasmuch as I believo that after the total book cost of those vessels sent to sea is finally made up, it will be found that they employ a capital very little short of .£BOO,OOO. Outnew contract for the Australian mails obliges us to effect the transit of such mails between Brindisi and Adelaide in the space of 3"2 i days. I find that the Britannia, the second of the ships built by Messrs. Caird and Co., Greenock, on her outward passage to Australia the other day, effected fcho transit, between Briudisi and Adelaide in

the space of 25. days, or a week under contract time. (Hoar, hear.) In our outward traffic from England our revenue has met with a satisfactory improvement during the past six months, whilst, on the other hand, on all our lines, with the exception of Australia, our homeward traffic has been a cause of constant and serious disappointment. We have from Bombay, from Calcutta, and from China, in each case, a .serious falling off in revenue. The Australian trade has recovered, although only nlightly, but the falling off from the other places named has counterbalanced within a fraction the advantage which we derived from the improvement, in trade on this sido. I see by the Board of Trade returns for the first four months of this year—up to the end of April—that tins amount of exports and imports into this country, the amount of our external trade, has advanced to the extent of between £(1,000,000 and £10,000.000 sterling. I am sorry to say, however, that very little of that trade, or at least of the import part of it, conies from India. On the contrary, there is in the Indian trade a distinct falling-off in the quantity of wheat exported to Great Britain, and in tho quantity of cotton alflo. I have summed up the situation for you as well and as briefly an I possibly can. The diminution of our subsidy unquestionably comes, in view of the circumstances to which 1

have referred, at a most inopportune time, and unless homeward freights improve, we shall have very hard work to maintain our profit and loss account on anything like the basis on which you have been accustomed to see it There ie only one circumstance in connection with the review of our situation which affords me, and which must, afford you, peculiar satisfaction in face of the facts which I have stated, and ifc is this, that in the years past we have fortified the position of the Company, and looked thoroughly well to our reserves. We are, therefore, to a certain extent, more or less in an independent position ; and however disagreeable, and however unfortunate, a serious fluctuation in our revenue such as I have referred to may be, and must be, that fluctuation will not, I venture to believe, affect in the slightest degree the stability of the Company. A dividend for tlio half-year ending 31st March last, at the rate of 5 per cent, per annum, was declared.