UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY OF NEW ZEALAND (LIMITED)

Otago Witness, Issue 2232, 10 December 1896, Page 55

UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY OF NEW ZEALAND (LIMITED)

MUTUAL BENEFIT SOCIETY. The sixth annual general meeting of the above Bociety was held on Saturday, the 28th ult., at the Sailors' Rest. Mr Mills (president) was in the chair. The report and balance sheet for the year ended 30th September lasb was placed before the meeting. The Chaibhan said : Gentlemen, it is rather unfortunate that the delay in the arrival of the MararoE? should have prevented our getting a full attendance to-day, seeing that we have some special business for tlrs meeting in the shape of important alterations to our rules, and, as I understand that under rule 20 we require to have at least 40* members present to enable us to transact business at* the annual meeting other than the presentation of the balance sheet and report and election of committee, it will ba necessary to adjourn the meeting until Monday for a full attendance. To-day, therefore, we ehall confine ourselves to merely presenting the accounts and asking you to approve of them, and the committee propose to postpone consideration of the resolutions with regard to altering the rules until Monday, and it will be for you to say whether we shall also postpone tho election of committee. We have a sufficient quorum present for this latter business, and we can go on with 16 if it is decided to do so. I shall leave the decision of this to those present and now merely present the accounts to you, and at the same time offer a little explanation of them. The report has been in your hands for some time, and I presume you will not re* quire .me to read ir, as those of you who take any interest in the society will have already, done so. I ehall therefore, with your permission, take it as read. You will notice that the funds of the society continue to increase steadily. At the close of the year ending 30th September last they stood at £4342 10s lOd, an increase of £453 7a 4d during the year, which I think you will admit is satisfactory. This period is of especial importance, seeing that it closes the first fiyo years of the exiiter.ee of the society. You will recollect that when the society wits first formed, the company undertook to contribute to its funds for five years. That period having now elapsed, the question of further assistance is again nnder consideration. What course this will take will depend largely upon the actuarial report on the state of the society. A thoroughly competent actuary in Wellirgton is now going into the accounts, in order that he may advise the society and the c mmittee how far it is in a thoroughly substantial position from a professional point of view. To look at the figures before us, . we naturally conclude that the society is in. a gocd position, and I think ib is so ; but we cannot say with certainty until the accounts .are gone into ' by an experienced actuary. When his report come 3up we shall then consider to what extent the company nhould render further assistance to the socit.ty. I may say that the funds of the society have steadily increased from Tear to year. At the end of 1892 they stood at £9169 ; at tbe end of 1893, 'they stood afr £2939 ; 1894, at £3701 ; 1895, at £3589 ; and in 1596, £4342. In each year, therefore, they show a very substantial increase, with the exception of 1895, when the revenue was small, consequent on an unusual strain upon the funds of the society owing £b the sad loss of the Wairarapa with so many of the society's members on board. ' With regard to the ordinary revenue and expenditure of .the society during tbe past year, thesß have gone very much upon the usual lines. The balance at the credit of the medical and management fund has increased £32 5s Id. The balance at credit of sick and tuceral fund has increased £391 2s 10d. The baiacce at credit of benevolentsfund has increased £29 193 5d — making, as I have already ota'ed, a total increase in the three funds ot £453 7s 4d. I may remark that the claims upon the sick and funeral fund have been very slight. No deaths amongst members afloat have cccurred either from accident or frcm natural causes, tha two cases where funeral claims have been paid being in one case owiDg to the death of a member who had been on the sick list in Melbourne for nearly two years, and in another case that of one who committed suicide by jumping overboard from the Robotnahana while on her voyage from Napier to Auckland in January last. The former received from the society during his illness nearly £70, and over and above this amount the usual funeral allowance was paid to his widow. The aggregate receipts of the society up to the end of September last— i.e., during the whole five years of its existence were as follow : — Mepibera 1 contribut'ons £11,003 4 0 Union Steam Ship Company's contributions 2.599 16 7 Honorary members' contributions 84 0 0 Entrance fees ... „. , '. 577 13 0 B6oks " ... ' "... J. .„ „. 29 4 6 Interest on funds M 602 13 0 Surrender values re funded .„ „. 47 2 9 Making the total receipts for the ' five years £14,943 13 10 During the same period the expenditure was— Sick pay, ... .„ ... £"4,008 2 7 Funeral claims ... » M ... ... 543 7 0 Surrender values ... ... ... 550 18 3 Medical Attendance ... .„ ... 2,8:6 2 7 Medicines ; ... 791 8 6 Donation from beirevolent-fund ... 549 0 10 Management and incidental expenses for the five years ... ... 1,327 3 3 The total expenditure being ...£10,601 3 0 The difference of £4342 10s lOd being the funds now in hand. I think this is very satisfactory, and chowS that the affairs of the society have been administered by the successive committees in a careful and competent manner. The number of members in the society at the end of last year was 860. I may state here that the cunwer in 1892 was 873 ; in 1893, 881 ; in 1894, 893 ; in 1895, 884 ; and last year, as I have already said, 860 ; so that the number has kept up at a fair average, although during the last two yean there appears to be a •light decrease. The reason for this, I understand, is that the committee does not now admit casual hands .so readily, and these have always to go through a period of probation before they are allowed to become members of the society. The number of employees who are members of other societies was in 1892, 66 ; 1893, 58 ; 1894, 72 ; 1895, 82 ; and in 1896, 90 ; so that for the last four years there has been a steady increase in the numbers belonging to other societies. In the ordinary fluctuations of n ther service a number of those belonging to other societies leave from time to time, and as the total hes increased it follows/ . therefore, there is a larger number' of — other society men entering the service. I mention this now as I shall have to refer to this aspect of it in a- few minutes. The number of ewployeei in the company's lervice afloat who were not members of this ' looiety or an« other was in 1892 128 ; in 1893, !00; iu1894, 200; in 1895, 216; and in 1896, J2O; so that this also keeps very much the lame, and, ss I have explained on a former iccasion, the number of these ia made np to a peat extent of employees in ships in the Ana*

tr llian service, who have not baen called upon so largely to join, and also the members of the different crews who are only on probation. I think the figures laid before you show that the society hes made substantial progress during the last five years and is now in a good position, and I look forward with confidence to the receipt of the actuarial report, which we should get shortly, to put this beyond all doubt. I just now gave you the figures of the number of members of other societies in the service, and this leads me to comment on the effort made during the last session of Parliament to pass a bill with the object of putting an end to this •society. It was stated that this society was antagonistic to other benefit societies and the members of the latter were excluded from the company's service, or rather, were compelled also to join the society, aud in support of this a great deal of capital was made out of a letter which was written by the secretary and sent to one of the pursers respecting a member of the Grafton crew, and which contained a threat of dismissal from the service unless he joined forthwith. It was afterwards found, however, that this man was a member of another society. It ia true that the secretary did send oat this letter, but it was found to be the only letter of that stamp which has bean sent out, and this, I think, had been written by him on the impulse of the moment and without fully considering the matter. In the records of the society there are a great number of letters which shot? chat members of other societies are not forced to join ours. I propose to read to you a few which will plainly prove this. I will first, however, read the letter I have spokea of : —

"To Purser, Grafton.— Please enrol Dunning, if under 40 yeara of age, and recommended -by Mr M'Nicol, and inform Dorling that unless ho joins forthwith, paying as from Ist April last, instructions will be issued for his dismissal from the service.— ll/5/96." This letter, »o I, have said, wan made a great deal of. It was photographed and sent to other benefit societies aud to the Premier, and on the strength of it the Government wai induced to reiotrodnce the bill to which I have referred. It was written, however, under the impression that Dorling was not a member of any society and was therefore merely evading his «übccriptions to ours, and the secretary wrote ia this strain with a view to bringing him up to the mark. However, on Ist June, 1896— three weeks later —a second letter was rent by the secietary to the purser of the Grafton, as follows :—: —

"To Purser, Grafton.— Dorling has written Mr Kirbv, statiug fhat he is a financial member of the Druids. Kindly let me kuow-per return mail whether Dorling cm furnish any proof of this statement arid also of the date of his joining tha Druids.-l/e/9d." And again, a fortnight later, to the came .purser : —

"To Purser, Graf ton.— Why have you always reported Doiling as nil when he has been a member of the Druids ever sines he joined your ship ? • In future his book must be oxamiued at li»ast or cc every quarter to see that his payment is kept up. ]8/ii/9(f." There are numerous letters of thia character, of whict the following are * few :—: —

"To Purser, Ovalau.— lf Wilson can satisfy you that he was a member of the Foresters before he joined the corup-my's service, he need not join our socieiy, but if he cannot da thissenrol him forthwith.— l 4/8/35."

"To Chief Officer, Poherua.— To see that contributions of hardinge and Lawsonto Oddfellows' Society are kept up — 18/8/95 " "To Chief Officer, Ohau.— Cannot admit O. Johnson to the society, as he is a financial member of the Druids.— l4/11/jJS." "To Purser, Rotokino.— Do not wish Denny to join society if he satisfies us that he is a financial member of Oddfellows.- 20/11/93." "To Chief Office", Ortti.— O'Brieu must produce evidence that he was proposed as an Oddfellow before joining your ship, "and also that he is now a financial member. — 11/12/95." " To Purser, Moa —If C. Anderson is a financial member of the Oddfellows we cannot admit him into the society. 18/12/95 " " To Purser, Talune —If Pimley satisfies you he is a financial member of the H-bernians we do not wish him to join the society.— 7/3/ii6." "To Purser, Upjlu.— It Ashbury was a member of the Buffalo Society before he joined our society he need not continue his subscriptions, but, if otherwise, he must pay up. -24/3/96." "To Chief Officer, PukakL-Unless the four men in the engine room claiming to be Oddfellows can satisfy you that they are financial members of some lodge they must join.— Thesa all go to show that there has been no attempt, either directly or indirectly, to debar ' members of other societies from joining the service, or to compel those who are members of other tooiefcie3 to join this one. The only instance which might be taken to infer that this was the cape is tho unfortunate letter to which I have referred, and which I think the secretary will admit was written without much thought, and of this letter the very greatest u«e has been made by those antagonistic to the society. As we are postponing consideration of the proposed amendments to raks until Monday, I shall defer making any comment on them now, and with the3e few explanatory remarks I will move ttiat the report and balance sheet be adopted. Mr D. M'Ewan, in seconding this, said : I hardly think it is necessary for me to go into any figures, seeing that the chairman has gone so fully into the question of the finances of the society. I would like, however, to call attention to an instruction from the last committee. It will not be dealt with to-day, but I would like to mention that there was a motion passed last year, which I seconded myself, to abolish the proxy syutem of voting and vote by direct ballot for the election of office-bearers. I might explain that the reason this has not been carried into effoct is that the committee found they bad ac v ually no power to revise the rales, or to abolish one rule in favour of another ; and, having in view that we intended to revise the rules altogether this year, we deemed it advisable to hold this matter over until the other rales came up for revisal. I may say that had we revised tha rule with regard to voting we should have had to call a general meeting, and this would have caused a great deal of unnecessary time and labour to be wasted. However, I think that the members will be satisfied with this explanation and will credit the committee for acting as they considered best in the interests of tbe society. The Chairman : I am obliged to Mr M'Ewan for drawing my attention to this point. It is one that had escaped me when addressing you just now. This question of substituting voting papers for voting by proxy has been duly considered by the committee, but it proved on looking into the matter that it could only be done by calling the members together in a special general meeting, which involved a good deal of trouble and expense. The committee therefore thought members would approve of their deferring the business till this meeting. The motion for the adoption of the report and balance sheet was unanimously agreed to. Mr M. Creb proposed, and Mr W. Handle seconded — " That the election of the committee be postponed until Monday." — Carried unanimously. On the motion of Mr M. Ores, it was decided to adjourn the meeting until 2 p.m. on Monday, 30th November. The adjourned meeting of the society was held ou JJondiy, 30th t ?.i 2 p.m., when there

was a large attendance of members. Mr J. Mills was in the chair.

The following members were elected as a committee of manager^ y nt for the ensuing 12 months : — Messrs S. B ,rber, A. Cox, M. Oree, D. M'Ewan, A. M'lnnes, D. Mathieson, J. Milne, J. Ne3«, W. Randle, W. A. Seymour, J. Wilson, and Captain Strang.

A number of amendments to the rules were submitted to the meeting, mainly providing for the election of members of committee in future by means of voting papers instead of, as at present, voting by proxy, and these, together with some additions proposed by members present, were unanimously approved of.

On the motion of Mr Bracegirdle, seconded by Mr Tate, a vote of thinks was passed to the retiring committee.

Mr M'Ewan, iv replying to this, said : Gentlemen, — In thanking you on behalf of myself and my fellow-committeemen for the vote of thanks which you have just passed, I may aay that I am, and we all are, much pleased that you approve of our conduct of the business during the past year, and also of the alterations iv the rules which have been proposed to-day and have just been cwried. Thia is especially pleasing, because these alterations emanated entirely from the committee, and I myself have had a principal hand in framing them. These revisions have given us a great deal of work, and night after night has been spent; by the members of committee in going through them. They have not in any way emanated from the company* and were uot submitted to then, until they were finally approved by the committee, when I am pleased to say that the company readily assented to the alterations. The position of a commitfceeman is not always a pleasant one, and one has to undergo a great deal of criticism ot iinies when applicants for aid do not get ail their own way ; but speaking for myself personally, I amjastified in thinking, from the fact that I have been appointed to the committee for fire eueccHsive years now, and that duriug the last year I have been, visited by over 300 members for information in- regard to the working of the society, &c, thai; the members have some confidence in me. I again thank you on behalf of ruyaelf and my fellowcommitteemen for the vote you have just passed.

A vote of thanks to the chairman was then passed.