PENINSULAR AND OMENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8948, 4 August 1892, Page 6

PENINSULAR AND OMENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION.

The 103 rd half-yearly meeting of this company was held at the company's offices, 122, Leadenhall-street, E.G., on June 3rd, Sir Thomas Sutherland, K.C.M.G , M.P., in the chair. The chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, said : We are able to declare our usual interim dividend at the rate of 5 per cent, upon the preferred stock, and at the rate of 7 per cent, upon the deferred stock, and I am not without hopes, notwithstanding a considerable number of features of a discouraging kind, that we may be able at the close of this year somewhat to enlarge the figures of the division which we now propose on the deferred stock. (Applause.) Let me call your attention to this simple fact as showing the enormous progress in our foreign trade during the last two or three years. In the year 1887 the total amount of the exports and imports of this country was £643,500,000. In the year 1890 the total amount of the same exports and imports amounted to £749,000,000, showing in the course of three years no less an increase than that of £106,000,000. Last year we announced to you that our freight receipts had diminished from the high point to which they had attained by something like £80,000, and now I am called upon to tell you approximately, without having any actual figures to put before you, how far we have advanced or receded in comparison with last year, and I am sorry to say that we have receded. We have receded in comparison with the year 1891 up to the present, not so largely altogether in the matter of freight, and not at all, 1 am happy to say, in the matter of passage money, but we have receded by a combination of lower freight and lower exchanges to the extent of nearly £80,000 per annum as compared with the year 1891. Thus at the present moment our freight and exchange operations are really about £160,000 below the very satisfactory point to which they had attained eighteen months ago, viz., at September 30, IS9O. Now, gentlemen, I need scarcely say that this is owing to no fault of yours or of ours. Our tonnage, our means of carrying, and our efforts have been exactly the same as they were eighteen months ago, hut the fact remains that owing to causes which are only too easily explained, the earning-power of the fleet is not identical with what it was at the period to which I am now referring. In the first place we know that all the foreign markets, more especially in our colonies, have been glutted with a large amount of unsaleable produce ; so great was the speculation two years ago that shipments were rushed with an abnormal degree of activity, so that that result has unfortunately followed. We know that in the Australian colonies, for example, there has been, and there still is, something in the nature of a prolonged commercial crisis going on. We know that in India there has been a certain scarcity of of produce for shipment owing partly to the fact of a deficiency in winter rains, and partly to the fact of the low prices for produce ruling on this side, and we know, what is perhaps the most important fact after all, thai; for the more restricted and limited trade which we have had to carry on this year and last year in comparison with the three previous years, there have be-m and there are 2,000,000 of new steam vessels to carry that, more than there were four or five years ago.