546 
The  tropical  agriculturist 
[Feb.  f,  1897. 
tuay  be  faumiLar.zecl  ! b follows  : [We  only  give  the 
totals.] 
Hlatistical  position  of  Tea  for  United  IStateB  and  Canada 
on  December  1,  IS'JO  ) 
Total  lb. 
Total  afloat  to  December  1, 18%  . . 0,146,333 
Eeceipts  to  December  1,  1896  . . 54,057,858 
Total  shipments  advised  by  mail  . . 63,204,191 
Leaving  to  be  shipped 
Estimated  supply,  Season  1896-97 
Supply,  Season  1895-96 
. . 19,145,809 
. . 82,350, ( 00 
..  105,300,581 
Afloat,  December  1, 1895  . . 8,362,658 
Eeceipts  to  December  1, 1895  . . 75,308,959 
Tot.  shipni'ts  adv’d  by  mail,  Dec.  1,  ’95  . . 83,671,617 
The  above  shows  a deficiency  for  1896-97  of  about 
23,000,000  pounds,  a loss  in  supply  quite  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  recent  advance  in  cost. 
From  now  on,  the  consumption  should  be  much 
better  than  prior  to  the  election,  besides  which  deal- 
ers, both  wholesale  and  retail,  will  carry  a more 
liberal  stock,  as  they  have  confidence  that  the  future 
will  be  reasonably  free  from  the  factors  which  have 
so  disturbed  business  since  1892.  Then  there  i.s  a 
prospect  for  the  imposition  of  a tax  on  tea  and  coffee, 
as  well  as  an  additional  tax  on  beer,  and  this  ought 
to  stimulate  demand.  There  is  a growing  sentiment 
that  taxes  in  the  direction  named  are  the  easiest  way 
to  give  the  Government  more  revenue.  The  tea  po- 
sition is  a strong  one. 
There  ought  to  be  encouragement  in  the  above 
figures  to  ship  Ceylon  tea  to  America  '! 
♦ 
ORIENTAL  ESTATES  COMPANY. 
The  adjourned  ordinary  general  meetieg  of  the 
Oriental  Estates  Company,  Limited,  was  held  on  the 
17th  Dec.,  at  Winchester  House,  Old  Broad-stroet, 
Mr.  Quintiii  Hogg  (the  chairman  of  the  company) 
presiding. 
The  Secretary  (Mr.  II.  Greey)  read  the  notice 
convening  the  meeting, 
The  CuAiiiM.VN  said  the  first  business  they  had  to 
transact  was  to  adopt  the  accounts  and  report.  They 
were  formally  received  at  the  last  meeting,  but  not 
adojited.  lie  then  proposed  their  adoption. 
Mr.  A.  W.  CiiEiou'ro.N  seconded  the  motion,  which 
W'as  f)ut  to  the  meeting  and  carried. 
An  extraordinary  general  meeting  was  then  held 
for  the  purpose  of  receiving  and  adopting  the  com- 
mittee’s report  with  regard  to  reducing  the  capital 
of  the  company. 
Mr.  Macaskie,  in  moving  the  reception  of  the 
committee’s  report,  said  it  woirld  be  within  the  re- 
collection of  the  meeting  that  in  July  last  the  com- 
mittee were  appointed  when  a scheme  had  been  put 
forward  which  did  not,  at  all  events,  satisfy  the 
preference  shareholders.  They  were  invited  to  confer 
with  two  representatives,  Mr.  Slaughter  and  Mr.  Touch, 
who  represented  the  ordinary  shareholders  with  the 
object  that  they  were  aware  of.  He  could  not  help 
recalling,  believing  as  he  did,  in  the  scheme  which 
they  had  arrived  at,  the  position  of  affairs  today. 
The  preference  shares  were  at  that  time  about  £3  10s., 
or  perhaps  less  in  the  market,  but  the  difficuUy  that 
confronted  the  preference  shareholders  was  perhaps 
chiefly  that  they  had  no  control  over  the  operations 
of  the  company  by  reason  of  the  state  of  the  capital 
account.  The  control  rested  with  the  ordinary  share- 
holders, which  was  very  unfair  to  the  preference 
shareholders,  because,  according  to  their  information, 
the  bulk  of  the  ordinary  shares  was  held  by  compara- 
tively few  persons,  linder  those  circumstances  it  uas 
perfectly  clear  that  the  power  of  withholding  dividends 
for  a time,  or  indefinitely,  rested  with  the  directors 
and  the  majority  of  the  ordinary  shareholders.  I'or 
that  there  was,  at  that  time,  no  cure.  Whatever  a court 
of  law  might  have  said  if  the  directors  had  chosen  to  de- 
clare dividends,  he  was  <piite  certain  that  no  courtof  law 
in  the  world  would  have  ordered  the  directors,  against 
their  own  judgment,  to  declare  'them,  and  therefore 
they  were  face  to  face  with  the  probability  that  the 
preference  shareholders  would  have  to  go  without 
dividends  for  five,  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  years. 
That  was  a very  uncomfortable  position,  and  al- 
though he  was  very  far  indeed  from  saying  that 
the  ordinary  shareholders  would  have  used  tne  power 
they  had  for  their  own  interest  against  the  company 
at  large,  it  was,  at  all  event’,  an  uncomfortable 
position  for  the  preference  shareholders  to  be  in.  Ac 
cordingly,  the  committee  set  themselves  to  find 
some  way  of  reconciling  those  conflicting  interests 
by  means  of  mutual  concessions.  He  did  not  pro- 
pose to  discuss  the  details  of  the  report,  but  there 
was  one  consideration  he  would  like  to  bring  before 
the  meeting,  which  he  did  not  think  ought  to  be  absent 
from  the  minds  of  the  shareholders.  He  said  little 
or  nothing  about  the  way  in  which  they  had  treated 
the  arrears  of  the  preference  dividends,  because,  after 
all,  that  was  a comparatively  s-nall  matter.  He 
said  nothing  ab  lut  the  provision  by  which  the  pre- 
ference shareholders  acquired  the  controlling  power 
over  the  operations  of  the  company.  That,  of  course, 
was  obvioui  and  patent  upon  the  face  of  the  report; 
but  there  was  this  consideration,  which  certainly 
never  entered  the  head  of  anyone  of  the  three 
gentlemen  who  represented  the  preference  share- 
holders, but  he  was  bound  to  say  operated  very  power- 
fully upon  the  minds  of  Mr.  Bishop,  Mr.  Liwrence, 
and  himself,  and  that  was  that  they  gave  up  18  per 
cent,  of  the  capital,  and,  of  course,  18  per  cent  of 
t'le  profits,  to  be  earned  by  the  ordinary  shareholders. 
What  did  that  mean  ? Before  assuming  the  scheme 
did  not  go  through,  they  were  entitled  to  a preferen- 
tial dividend  of  7 per  cent.  To  pay  that  they  required, 
roughly,  iT4,(X)0.  The  effect,  therefore,  of  the  scheme 
was  that  as  long  as  the  trading  profits  of  the  year 
were  £14,000,  or  under,  the  preference  shareholders 
were  giving  up  to  the  ordinary  shareholders  about 
18  percent,  of  their  £14,000,  which  the  articles  would 
have  given  to  the  preference  shareholders.  That  was 
to  the  advantage,  of  course,  of  the  ordinary  shareholders. 
But,  supposing  the  profits  upon  the  year’s  trading  ex- 
ceeded ,£14,0()0,  then  82  per  cent,  of  that  excess  over 
£14,000  went  to  the  persent  holders  of  preference 
shares,  and  in  estimating  whether  or  not  the  right  to 
80  per  cent,  of  the  excess  over  £14,000  was  or  was 
not  equal  to,  or,  as  he  thought,  much  more  valuable 
than  the  concession  that  the  preference  shareholders 
were  called  upon  to  make,  they  must  look  at  the 
results  of  the  last  si.v  or  seven  years’  trading.  He 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  go  through  the  balance- 
sheets  during  the  last  six  or  seven  years,  and  the 
results  from  the  preference  shareholder’s  point  of 
view  were  very  remukable.  He  did  not  know  whether 
they  should  assume  that  the  results  would  in  future 
be  worse  than  they  had  been  in  the  past,  because 
in  1892-93  they  suffered  a good  deal  from  the  effects 
of  a disastrous  hurricane,  which  would  not  occur 
again,  perhaps,  for  ten  or  eleven  years.  If  they  looked 
back  at  the  balance-sheets,  they  would  find  that  in  1890 
the  profit  upon  the  year’s  trading  was  over  £26,600 — 
that  was  to  say,  £12,000  in  excess  of  the  £14,000,  of 
which  the  preference  sha,reholders  would  take  about 
80  percent.  In  1891  the  trading  profits  were  .£27,000, 
in  1892  they  were  £28,000,  and  then  came  the  year 
of  the  hurricane,  from  which  they  suffered  a loss, 
and  when  there  was  a profit  of  only  £14,000;  but  still, 
th’y  would  see  that  the  advantage  would  have  been 
in  favour  of  the  preference  shareholders.  He  ven- 
tured to  think  that  those  figures,  if  they  at  all  re- 
presented what  they  were  likely  to  meet  with  in 
future,  were  in  favour  of  the  preference  shareholders. 
Mr.  Ceaud  Bishop  seconded  the  motion,  which  was 
supported  by  Mr.  Lawkence,  audearried  unanimously. 
The  Ciiaiuman  said  the  next  business  was  to  discuss 
the  report  of  the  committee,  and  before  putting  the 
clause  seriatim  he  wished  to  say  that  he  very  cordially 
recommended  the  adoption  of  the  report.  He  did  not 
at  all  admit  an  entire  difference  in  the  two  reports,  but 
he  contended  that  the  second  scheme  was  infinitely 
preferable  to  the  lirst.  If  they  took  the  average  profits 
in  the  past  two  years  and  dealt  with  them  on  the  basis 
of  L'20,(J()0,  the  scheme,  with  the  two  modifications  which 
ho  recommended,  it  would  bo  soon  was  not  very  different 
