474 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



tion of the Herne Bay Act, thought that nothing but clear 

 public advantage could justify the appropriation to, or 

 retention by, a public company of the Herne Bay grounds. 

 In the third place, I am unable to find that the public 

 is deriving, directly or indirectly, any advantage from the 

 existence of the Herne Bay Company. 



Looking at the matter, then, from a public point of 

 view alone, I should be disposed to recommend that the 

 certificate of the Board of Trade should issue, and that the 

 Company should be deprived of its whole grounds. 



But it is one of the unfortunate circumstances of the 

 present case that it is impossible to look at it from a public 

 point of view alone, or to ignore the position of the share- 

 holders of the Company. 



These persons, bond fide, subscribed 100,000 for the 

 sake of pursuing an object which they believed, and which 

 the Legislature believed, to be profitable and laudable. 



The utmost that can be said of the directors to whom 

 they entrusted the management of the money, and even 

 this cannot be said of the present directors, is that they 

 have been extravagant and unwise. They have always 

 endeavoured to carry out the objects of their Act ; they 

 have failed, as most other oyster culturists have failed 

 during the last few years. 



I do not know that there is much reason for hoping 

 that Mr. Davies will achieve success, where his predeces- 

 sors and colleagues have only met with failure. The mere 

 fact that he is sanguine proves nothing ; to be sanguine is 

 the characteristic of promoters. But undoubtedly he has 

 a chance, just as the original Company had a chance, of 

 success, and his chances are the better of the two, because 

 (i)he is not weighted with the heavy expenditure under 

 which the Company in the first instance laboured ; and (2) 



