BRITISH RAILWAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21457, 3 April 1933, Page 11

BRITISH RAILWAY

MEETING THE DEPRESSION ECONOMIES TOTAL £5,586,000 Viscount Churchill, addressing the annual general meeting of the Great Western Railway Company in London recently, said its free and ear-marked reserves still amounted to about £23,750,000, and represented slightly more than 13 per cent of the capital expenditure of the company. "The decision of the board to recommend a dividend of 3 per cent on the consolidated ordinary stock was arrived at only after a careful review of the whole position," he said, "and it was not governed primarily by the desirability of maintaining the full trustee status of the prior stocks, as has been suggested in some quarters. "Before the close of the past year the total of the general reserve and contingency funds was £3,400,000. These are free reserves, built up for use in abnormal times for supplementing dividends on the ordinary stock, among other purposes. "The board felt it would not be right to withhold from the stockholders the benefits of these free reserves in this period of widespread stringency. The board is satisfied that despite the withdrawal of £1,100,000 from the free reserves, the financial position of the company remains very strong." While the gross receipts had declined by £8,617,000 in the past five years, this loss had been offset by reductions in expenditure of £5,586,000, or 65 per cent of the total loss in gross receipts. Lord Churchill said that in more than ono direction ho could see signs of returning confidence in industry and improvement in trade.