South British Insurance Company.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 518, 14 October 1890, Page 3

South British Insurance Company.

DISSATISFACTION OF SHAREHOLDERS.

Auckland, Friday.

The following extracts from the report of the shareholders’ meeting will be interesting to Gisborne people, to whom the ladi> s especially are well known. Mrs Laing asked whether the vacancy caused by the retirement of Mr Hobbs would be filled by the directors themselves or otherwise.

The Chairman: That will be decided afterwards.

Mrs Laing said she thought every shareholder should have a voice in the appointment. Mr Elkin, who had been anxious to get on the Board, conld not be nominated on account of eome informality. He held about 20,000 proxies, and in deference to the wishes of so large a nnmber of shareholders she thought it would be a graceful act on the pert of the directors to appoint Mr Elkin to the vacancy. During the last few years it was a remarkable fact that deference bad not been paid to the wishes of the shareholders, while the directors were •imply trustees or guardians of the shareholders’ money. The directors might have been actuated by the best of motives, but they had gone in for a speculative business which had been the curse of this fair city of Auckland. It was seen in almost every company that had been brought forward, and the consequence was that Auckland was not to-day in anything like the position it was in some few years ago. As one holding a large stake in the country, she felt this both pecuniarily and otherwise. They were now having great changes in the Board of Directors, and she urged upon the members as a warning that they should not speculate in outside matters, but that they should run the business of the Company upon a safer footing. One of the directors had been absent during the session of Parliament, and she understood that the atm unt of honcrarium which that director forfeited for non attendance at the meetings of the Board was paid to other directors. Bhs thought this very wrong, and urged that it a director was absent and could not earn his money, that money should go back to the Company. (Hear, hear.) The Chairman said the articles of Association governed their actions in regard to •looting a director. Mr Go'die regretted that the Chairman had declined to retire. During the six years prior to 1889 they received in Auckland premiums £76,000, and out of that all that was saved by the Company was a little over £5OO. In another place in New Zealand they received £30,000, in premiums, and cleared £l3 000 which was in marked oontrsst to the Auckland business. The directors were to a very large extent responsible for this. I* was perhaps a wise policy to go into foreign business, providing they had 'he staff to manage that business. The New Zealand Insurance Company carrying on business in the same places had made a clear profit of £87,000 upon a premium income of £127,000 less than the South British, while they had made an absolute lou of £4B 000. The Chairman, as Managing Director, was to a very large extent responsible for this loss. He felt that the confidence in the Chairman throughout New Zealand had been thoroughly shaken, and until he left his position as a director and Chairman of the Board the public would not again have confidence in the Board or Company. Ji the Chairman did not st once see his way clear to retire it only remained to call an extraordinary meeting and get the shareholders to say whether be should remain or not, Mr Goldie also referred to the retirement of the late manager *nd to the fact that be received £1,060. twelve months’ salary, in lien of notice. He said that if that gentleman was competent to do bis work there was no reason to get rid of him. Mr Goldie, quoting from a recent •perch delivered by the Chairman, said Captain Daldy had repeatedly spoken as follows “ There is hardly any eentre where our managers are not onrown men specially trained to the policy and system of the Company, and who are perfectly in touch wi'h the head office.” If that was so the head office was msrifestly entirely wrong m the selection of their men, and ’yet their Chairman, who had brought them into trouble, persisted in sitting there to work out, he feared, mischief to himself and to the >h»reholdere. It would be much better for him to have said, P Gentleman, I have made a mess of it, and I shall retire in order to give place to younger and abler men,’’ Mr Goldie went OU to say that there were men selling apples and potatoes in New Zealand whfi ought to have had £4OO a year out of the Company, and who had been ruined on account of the apparent imbecility of those who bad the management of it. He hoped the Chairman would not put them to any trouble to put him out, but that be would retire and let a new man take his place. Mr Batger did not think it fair that some Of the shareholders should give only new members of the Board credit for the present policy, and bore testimony to the unanimity which had been displayed since bis own appointment. He said that every member of the Board had a fair share and sav in the policy adopted by the Board as a whole. Mrs Chamberlin denied this, and stated that her late husband was not allowed to have his resolution written down, that he was not allowed to record his vote on certain occasions, although he held the same views as were brought forward by new members of the Board, She had been receiving £5OO a year from this Company, but now the bad hardly any income because the gireciors had misapplied their money in various ways. She was too old to work, and she did not care to beg, and she was compelled to come there like a men and take her share in public meetings in order to look after her own interests. She remsrked that Mr Peaeock had taken the position her late husband had held, and aha did not know ihjt Mr Peacock had dope anything which her husband would not have done.

Mr Batger said the Chairman was just as responsible for what had been praised as fbe new policy as was any other member Of the Board, in every act of policy that had taken place during the last twelve months the directors had acted as one man.

Mrs Laing said that as for the directors acting as one man that had been too much the case. They had taken good care to put no one on tho Board except those who agreed with them, apd that was the case when they got rid of the Hou. Mr Chamberlin. She admitted that “ union was strength,” but urged that it was sometimes desirable that there should be a healthy difference of opinion between the directors. She thought it would be a good thing if the directors were elected for a shorter term than at present, and suggested two years or one year. Captain Daldy declined to retire from the position of director. He bad never done anything wrong in conducting the Company’s business, and could not retire without a stain on h>B character, His •' pet theory,” to which illusion had been made, had been placed before the shareholders and accepted by them, and no eomp'aint was made so long as dividends were paid on it.

In reply to Mr Goldie, the Chairman promised that if an extraordinary meeting were Oa|lsd ha would stop any of the officers procuring proxies in his Interest. It it hid not b*en tor the heavy losses sustained by two of Ulf Objpppnyte brapohss there would have been I Wamse of £26,600 to credit, and after Cutting off the two rotten branches they had a sound tree and excellent prospects for the future, *