NEW ZEALAND STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1861, 28 April 1863, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.

We are able to announce in au authorative manner that the statemeuts contained in a letter lately published by the Advertiser regarding; the N.Z.S.N. Company convey a most erroneous impression as to the position of the Company's affairs. Feeling much interested in the success and speedy extension of the operations of the i Company, we weie induced after reading the letter referred to, to call at the Managers offices, and from information thus obtained beg to direct public attention to the following important points. 1. — The balance of third call should be stated as on 3685 shaves, at J83685, leas proportion of amount lodged to meet calls, £735, instead of, as in •• Shareholder's" letter, £1900.

2, — No credit is given for probable sal© of remaining 1315 shares; of these, 500 have been applied for since the general meeting, making an available asset of £2250, and 800 remains to be allotted though possibly the mail now overdue may bring advicei of the sale of all these in London.

3. — No allowance is made for the 4th call which will amount to £3800.

4.— No mention is made of probable profits during the next half year. As^ith two small vessels £&7W) was made during the first six monthi probably noboLly would estimate the next, with the valuable assistance of the Lady Bird at less than £3000- ; making a total of £lo,too— thus making more than ifi2ooo over the £8000, the provision for which huß made the " Shareholder" so anxious.

It should not be lost sight of, however, that after the call due in July—there will still be £4 10s per share to call up in quarteily calls, which will be over £18,000, even although not another share is applied for.

' We are confident that the facts and figures above adduced, will show satisfactorily to the shareholder of the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company, and to the public at large, that the statements contained in the letter referred to, are incorrect, and that any inferences which may be drawn jjherefrom will be unwarranted.

We will not comment on the impropriety of publishing such statements, without making due enquiry before hand. Any well wisher to the Company would, we think, have first obtained the fuillst information, before venturing to circulate a report calculated to be so mischeavous in its results.

THE DEBTORS AND CREDITORS ACT. The Daily limes of the 21st inst, thus alludes to the delay which has taken place in proclaiming this Act. By one of the clauses it can only come into operation in any particular Province by proclamation of the Governor in the General Government Gazette.

Two of tho most important measures, passed last session, were the Debtors and Creditors Act, and the Act for establishing Marine Boards. Both these measures were urgently required. The state of the laws affecting insolvents and imprisonment for debt had long been considered a disgrace to the colony, and the immense increase in the commercial transactions of the colony caused by the gold discoveries, rendered it absolutely necessary that the insolvency law should be thoroughly revised and amended. Accordingly tho Debtors and Creditors Act of 1862 was passed, but although about eight' months have elapsed since it received the sanction of the Governor, it has not yet been put in force. Not long .ago Mr E. B. Cargill, one of the members for Bruce, and who had taken an active part in the framing and passing of the bill, wrote to the Colonial Secretary explaining the urgent neoessity there existed for the Act being brought into immediate operation and pointing out the loss and inconvenience suffered by the trading community under the existing anomalous and unsatisfactory law. If our memory serve us correctly, the answer vouchsafed to Mr Cargill 'a application was an intimation that some of the provisions of the act requiring modification, they were to be submitted to the Judges of the Court of Appeal, and after receiving the requisite legal emendations, the Aot should immediately be brought into force. The Court of Appeal has met and dissolved, and yet nothing is heard of tiie intention of the General Government as to when the Act shall be proclaimed. As far as we are aware, all the necessary preliminaries have been fulfilled. The Chambers of Commerce, in the various Provinces, have nominated the persons required by the Act as Mercantile Assessors; and yet we believe that although the names of the proposed assessors have been submitted to the Government for some two or three months, the nominations have not yet been fully sanctioned. Here we have a measure affecting seriously tho commercial interests of the whole colony, in the first place prepared bo hastily and passed so inconsiderately that it is found to be unworkable in its present shape, and to require tfie assistance of the Judges in improving it, and then quietly laid on the shelf. It does not require us to tell the mercantile community how much their interests are injured by the existing state of the insolvency laws. If is unsatisfactory alike to debtors and creditors, the former are too much at the mercy of vindictive creditors, and tho latter to that of unprincipled'and dishonest debtors. There can be no doubt that if the Debtors and Creditors Act had been in force during the past (qw months, it would have had a very salutary influence, and tended much to preserve a healthy lono of commercial morality.