SOUTH CANTERBURY FARMERS CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 12

SOUTH CANTERBURY FARMERS CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION.

Timaru, June 16. An extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in the Farmers' Co-operative Association was held to-day. There was a very large attendance. The chairman read a statement for the directors showing that while the company's articles of association under which the directors had carried on business assumed that they had power to borrow and obtain bank advances a doubt had arisen whether the memorandum of association, the real basis of the company, conferred those powers, and while there was a difference of opinion among coumel consulted the doubt was sufficient to destroy their bankers' confidence. No doubt existed as to the solvency of the institution. As evidence of this one of the oldest banks would have taken over the account but for the legal defect in the memorandum. The accounts had been carefully examined, and all bad and doubtful debts written off. Experienced stocktakers had been over the stocks, and reported them sound and saleable. The balance sheet to 30th April circulated showed a margin of solvency of £46,654, and a balance to the credit of shareholders of £11,000. The stocktakers' report on their inspection of stocks was satisfactory, and the auditors' report also, except in regard to auction accounts, £20,045 (since largely reduced). They could not speak with confidence as to the bulk of this account, as the security was "largely a normal one," and they were not prepared to value the account. The chairman, in further explanation, stated that it was not intended to ask for any more powers than had been exercised in the past, and which the directors and every shareholder believed they possessed. There was much diversity of opinion among the legal advisers consulted all over the colony as to the foundation of the doubt, but no diversity as to the steps necessary to remove it. He made some comment on the accounts, claimed that the company is in a perfectly sound condition, and said the directors dare not have met the shareholders with such a proposal were it not so. He mentioned tbat sinoe the company started £30,000 had been paid in bonuses and dividends, over £22,000 of it in. bonuses. Resolutions were carried by show of hands practically unanimously that the company be voluntarily wound up, with Mr J. Talbot, present chairman, and Mr J. Page, former chairman, as liquidators. A motion that the company be reconstructed was similarly carried, and the poll afterwards resulted in 1100 for and 40 against the reconstruction. A desultory discussion took place on this motion, and the directors were criticised by one shareholder for going into the auction business. Another demanded special representation of small shareholders on the directorate. In reply to a question, it was stated that there are 1400 shareholders, of whom 752 have only one share each and 505 more or less than 10 each. The resolutions need confirmation by a meeting early in July. The meeting lasted two hours, and was the largest and most packed assembly of farmers ever seen in Timaru.