CO882-(6-8) — Page 464

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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the motives of the Chairman of the Company. Indirectly they paid me a high compliment when they assumed that I was strong enough to lead, for any such diabolical and peculiarly imagined purpose, a Board of eight gentlemen, including those who can be commanded from London. That is an ability that I cannot lay claim to.

GOVERNMENT BY PRIVATE Letters.

MR. SELLAR TO BE SHIPPED HOME.”

À TRIBUTE TO THE MANAGER,

זי

A Director here had already at an earlier date been urged by private communication ta get Mr. James Sellar, our Manager, shipped home and got out of the way before the Managing Director arrived out. The explanation of this that afterwards transpired was that Mr. Sellar was too much on the side of the Bourd here and the Chairman in particular: or, to put it in another way, there was danger of Mr. Sellar's knowledge, shrewdness, ability, local experience and views being imbibed by the newly appointed Managing Director, who was then about to arrive from home. This, of course, would not suit London; all that London desired him to be imbued with were the views and ideas held in London, and with these only.

Whatever may have been the motives behind this reflection on the value, reliability, and trustworthiness of a Manager whose work and whose policy did not suit the diplomacy of some persons in England, I wish to take this opportunity of telling the Shareholders in Europe those in Singapore already know it--that in Mr. Sellar as its Manager this Company has had the advantage of a servant, so able, so indefatigable, so sound, so conscientiously wrapped up from daybreak to night in vigorous and never-ceasing work and attention in promotion of the truest and best interests of the Company (applause), that it will be a sorry day for the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company if by reason of his adhering to these principles and character- istics and exercising them and his abilities according to the interpretation on this side of how these should be exercised, or from any other cause, the Company should lose the services of its Manager, Mr. James Sellar. It will, too, be an evil day for the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company when its administrative and executive officers fail to work hand in hand and in elose and sole sympathy with the Directors here generally, and with the Chairman in particular, when the judgment of those officers--if they are worth their places and their salt tell them that the Directors and the Chairman are the right and proper persons to work hand in hand and in sympathy with, in conducting the operation and business of the Company in an honest, broadminded, and sound way. It may be the view of some Shareholders in England that local experience should be politely steered clear of," but it will not suit this Company; and the Company and those in London who would thus dictate to its Directors and officers are hardly, I should think, one and the same thing.

Even if the letter I have just quoted did not prove it, we know that certain members of the London Consulting Committee had endeavoured to bias the mind of our first Managing Director against this Board generally and against the Chairman in particular, and had made to him some very extraordinary representations. We learned from him, after he had arrived here, that when he was being engaged at home there was a strong effort made to get him to promise definitely that he would side with the London Committee, and not with the Directorale here.

ATTEMPTS TO BIAS OFFICIALS.

What the present Managing Director was told we do not know, but one thing I am satisfied of that no prominent official of this Company has been allowed to leave London to take up an appointment with this Company in Singapore without some innuendo introduced into his ear in London against those on this side.

To revert to the London letter that I have quoted to you, I cannot profess to judge what motives in the mind of the person who wrote that letter led him to write it. I am content to leave that question to those members of the Committee who, when the letter was brought to their attention, treated the matter as of no weight, and who thought it did not at all matter.

If there is one thing, however, that I can promise the gentlemen of the London Consulting Committee and the Shareholders in Europe, it is this, that striving here, as the gentlemen of this Board and myself all for long have done, not only hard and conscientiously but some oi us at encrifice of time, health, our own personal affairs, and much of what otherwise might be taken for recreation, in endeavouring under great difficulties and much hampered, to improve the position of this Company, we are keenly sensitive on the point of our honour and conscientious efforts, and no one of these gentlemen 7,000 miles away who ever impugned or who may impugn that honour and these efforts will be allowed to do so with immunity.

Who DOES THE THINKING?

Where, pray, is the work of this Company, and all the relative thinking-out done? Where aje exercised all the efforts and endeavours, the drive and push, to get things brought more closely up to the requirements of not only to-day but the future? It can only be and only 15 done in Singapore, and it is an absolute and manifest impossibility that it can be done anywhere else. "The one thing uppermost in the minds of those in London is how the Company's shares may be maintained at a high value. And, if the Directors here and the Chairman do not fall in with and act up to the views of London then it of course follows, without any further red of question, that "all the wisdom of the Singapore Board cannot produce much." These London gentlemen who are so desirous and determined to get absolute control und direction of this Company's doings out here, even to details as I shall show you directly, these people who for many years back have been a drag on what should have been the Company's policy, viz., to equip its property in good time for modern day requirements, began themselves to take alerta a little while back at what was becoming only too evident, that the Company

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must do in the way of improvements. Then they turned round and alleged that it was the Directors and Chairman in Singapore who were wanting in wisdom and foresight, and who were keeping the Company back from progressing, and forthwith the leaders in this changed line of London's front, which they saw had become necessary, adopted the diplomacy of going blustering about among Straits people in London advertising and enlarging on the iniquities and incompetency of this Board and of the Chairman in particular.

MR. ANDERSON CHARGED WITH "STANDING IN THE WAY OF PROGRESS."

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It was most interesting to me only a few weeks ago to learn that a gentleman lately on a visit to Singapore from London, who appears to be imbued with and evidently desires to promulgate the representations made by some gentlemen of London, remarked to an acquaintance of mine here that "it was quite well known that the Chairman, Mr. John Anderson, was the one man who was standing in the way of the progression and advancement of the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company.' I gathered that the reply he got was not a very sympathetic nor comforting one; but this will go to show you the kindliness and appreciation that is our reward for hammering at men 7,000 miles away to allow us to get on. If he, and those whose views he voiced, referred to any London proposals that disregarded, in opinion held on this side, the Company's future in its relation to this place as a great shipping port and centre, then I at once plead guilty.

THE CHARGE Refuted,

If they mean that I have at any time or in any sense done otherwise than work hard for and strongly advocate a true and practical improvement of the Company's position, then I propose to show you and them that it is the London Consulting Committee, in promoting and insisting on the views of some Shareholders on that side, who have over years back stood in the way of promoting the truest and best interests, and advance in equipment, of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company. I do not say that they have done so intentionally, but they act upon what they believe to be the necessities of the port as it existed twenty, aye, fifteen or even ten, years ago while those who on the spot are carrying on the work of the place, know that these views are hopelessly out of date, and how vastly the demands of the port have increased in the last few years, and are increasing still. No man was ever more alive to the need of this Company to prepare itself for the day ahead of heavier calls on its capacities and of a coming greater responsibility to the port than my predecessor in this chair, the late Mr. Thomas Scott. He had to do with the founding of the Company, he fathered it, nursed and brought it through critical and crucial times, and never in a life time of energetic and successful labour for the Company and personal sacrifice to its interests, could any man have acquired a deeper knowledge of what it needed, of what its responsibilities were, and of what it had to do and ought to do for time ahead, than the gentleman who preceded me as Chairman of this Company, and who off and on for over 35 years guided its affairs with an amount of ability, vigour, foresight, and unselfish close attention that was more than extraordinary. It has suited some people in London to decry him--always, of course, behind his back, and usually when they were writing him honeyed letters professing to take his council on the affairs of this Company-and to allege that it was he who was keeping back the progression of the Company,

LONDON COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE,

"WHY RUN T. P. FOR POSTERITY?"

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But what was the real truth behind the scenes? The saddle is on the Loudon horse. there one prominent man of the group who will deny that their cry and agitation over many years back has been the oft-repeated assertion to my predecessor in the chair, to the gentlemen forming from time to time the Singapore Board, and to myself, that they were not going to allow the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company to be run for their posterity"? Why, this exact expression has been so often repeated und pressed, that it might appropriately have been stereo- typed. Do they forget how, commencing a good many years ago, they got up agitations in London among the Shareholders there, that the time had come for their getting more out of the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company, and that they must have more dividend money? The Chairman and the Board of the day were doing here all they could quietly to improve, extend, build, equip, and strengthen. But no; London had waited long enough, and better dividends they were going to have, and would have.

PAPER CAPITAL.

Well, they got their way, but, of course, money paid in that way could not be spent in building up the Company for the calls on its capacities that were to come in days ahead. The more they got the more they wanted and exacted, and when the dividends became abnormally fat and began to threaten uncomfortable notice from contributing shipowners, their plan to veil this, was to double the capital on paper, No doubling of the capital in cash forin such as would enable the Company to extend and permanently construct its wharves and facilities: no, only a doubling of the saleable value of scrip. This was on the let January, 1899, when the capital, then a million and a half dollars, was doubled on paper. It is a good many years ago that a former Chairman and myself discussed a suggestion of mine to him that the Shareholders of this Company (it had then less than half its present capital) should be appealed to and asked to content themselves for a run of years with a reduced dividend, while the Company built itself up in equipment and capacity. He was in sympathy with the idea but assured me that it was hopeless even to suggest it, in the face of the growing persistence and strength of the London cry that the Shareholders there would no longer stand the Company being run and worked, as they termed it, "for their posterity."