THE NEW ZEALAND WOODWARE FACTORIES COMPANY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6440, 3 October 1882, Page 2

THE NEW ZEALAND WOODWARE FACTORIES COMPANY.

[By Telegraph.]

(I'KOM OUB OWN CORBESFONDENT.)

Auckland, October 2nd.

The .Herald of Saturday publishes extracts from the report of the above Company's meeting, aud comments as follows: —" We published on Thursday a short extract from the report of the meeting held on August 22nd at Dunedin to wind up the above Company. We have already referred to this matter by quotations from the balance-sheet issued under the authority of Messrs Guthrie and Larnach, to show that shareholders have been very badly treated in this concern, and although Mr Larnach has entered into an elaborate defence of himself, we do not think he will convince the people that ho is blameless. The argument that his bankers were unkind does not hold water, because they were merely using other people's money entrusted to^their care, and could not go on for ever allowing Guthrie and Larnach to lean upon them. Mr L(#nach's ex parte defence of himself is singularly reticent on the point which mainly interests shariholders—namely, how much of their money they are likely to (jet back. If, as rumour hath it, there will be nothing, shareholders will be further curious to have it explained how, on the 31st of January last, Mr Larnach, as a director, came to ißsue a balance-sheet showing £184,000 to the good. There is no talk of the liquidators sacrificing the property. The Bank did not stop the Company in 1877, when times were bad, and when the shareholders might have contended that it would be unfair to stop them. ' Times are not bad now, and surely £184,000 will not disappear in realisation. Shareholders cannot forget that Mr Larnach has been a director for two years past, and that by his own admission he was consulted by Mr Gufchri« on all important points. It is too much to expect shareholders to be satisfied with the plea of the Bank's alleged sudden change of front as a reason for the disappearance of £184,000, if it has disappeared, in a little over six months. They will inevitably conclude that if their entire capital is gone now, not much of it survived at last balance, nor at the balance before that, and they will justifiably think that had the balancesheets taken shareholders a little more into the confidence of the directors, to put it mildly, the shareholders themselves would have anticipated the action of the Bank while yet some fraction of their money remained. To recriminate upon the Bank may be a satisfaction to Mr Larnach ; it is a, very poor satisfaction to the shareholders."