CABLE SERVICE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 133, 7 June 1934, Page 10

CABLE SERVICE

IMPERIAL COMMUNICATIONS ANNUAL MEETING OF COMPANY. In spite of a reduction in revenue from investments, the returns of Imperial and International Communications, Ltd., last year showed an increase of £lB,OOO over the previous year, In his address to the annual meeting of the company in London, the chairman (Mr. J. C. Denison-Pender) said the profits from the traffic and other business of the Company amounted to £209,552 against £80,358 for lhe previous year; from manufacturing and other profits of the Marconi Company £lOO,BlB was derived compared with £48,706 the previous year; while from the income on investments of the Cable Companies, after deducting debenture interest and preference dividends of those companies, there was a return of £441,028 against £584,671 the previous year. From the total; profit of £751,398 there had to be deducted the amount of dividends paid to non-assenting shareholders of the Cable Companies and the Marconi Company, which was £11,216, and the increase in amounts carried forward to the next year, amounting to £22,162. The dividends received by the Company for last year were therefore £718,020 against £700,190 for the previous year. Air. Denison-Pender said the reduction in the revenue from investments might be attributed to three causes—the reduction in the yield from British Government and other high class securities, the failure to

meet payment of interest by certain foreign Governments, and the financial crisis in the United States where the Company had suffered both through defaults and through the fall in the exchange value of the dollar. After referring to efforts to increase theefficiency of the Company’s operations, Mr. Denison-Pender said, “We have from the outset sought as part of a definite policy the completion of arrangements by which the common interest of existing cable and wireless undertakings in overseas could best be served by close and friendly co-opera-tion. This has naturally been a task of great difficulty and one requiring time and personal contact in order to establish that mutual confidence on which alone effective co-operation is possible. Since we last met the chairman of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd., has been in this country and we were able to reach a satisfactory settlement in regard to all matters outstanding and to conclude an arrangement which will result in closer cooperation between out two Companies. This arrangement confers to the intentions of the wireless and cable conference under which our own Company was created and I hope it may lead to a final settlement of the question of cable and wireless communications with Australia. In regard to Canada, an arrangement has been agreed with the Canadian Marconi Company which should also result to our mutual benefit.” “It will be remembered,” Mr, Deni-son-Pender said, “that some of the companies which from this group were the pioneers off overseas telegraphy and were responsible for connecting up nearly all the countries of the world. In those days groat appreciation was shown by many foreign Governments for the assistance to international trade which was afforded by telegraphic facilities and it is indeed no ill-considered axiom that trade follows the telegraph route. Many of these countries, in fact, owe the development of their trade very largely to telegraphic and shipping facilities provided through British enterprise, but sometimes I am inclined to think that, these pioneer services have been forgotten. It is our great desire to maintain friendly and cordial relations with all the Governments and companies with which we have business relations. “I desire this year once more to sound a -warning note against the tendency to overdevelop telegraphic facilities which can only result in an uneconomic position for all concerned with an ultimate restriction of development and research and a postponement of reduction in rates. The tendency to-day is for every country to desire its own overseas telegraph system working direct to its more important trading areas with a result that in the past few years these direct services have been cutting into the whole econnomic structure of international telegraphy. It is not within my province to dictate, but I feel I should not be doing my duty unless I warned others of what I believe to be a very great menace to everyone in the telegraph business whether it be private enterprise or Government owned.” Tho chairman said that a resolution altering the name “Imperial and International Communications, Ltd..” to “Cable and Wireless,” would be submitted to a special meeting. He expressed the opinion that the new name would be a more suitable and effective one.