CO882-(6-8) — Page 466

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TIPC.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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should, I think, be considered and resolved into a scheme at the same time as a decision The is come to about extension and development at east end of the property. representative and leading Shareholders at home should be got to recognise and approve now of a policy for as largely as is possible extending the Company's wharfing and cargo handling capacities, that this policy be given effect to by selection of such schemes as promise to utilise to greatest advantage those portions of the Company's properties not yet availed of, that these schemes be settled and laid down on plans which shall be a guide in any development, and then that extension and development be gone on with as circumstances and means permit, in short that the Company settle and prepare a working plan for the future and then proceed to act upon it. At present (6th July, 1899) there is no settled plan defining any policy or scheme of laying out the Company's property, and the position is, therefore, analogous to an engineer more or less erratically doing things by bits and scraps instead of having a plan of his work all laid out ahead

of him."

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• •

"I know, of course, that what is spoken of means the outlay of a great deal of money. That, however, will have to be faced.

Apropos of the matter of an Admiralty Dock, there is a day coming-I don't think it is at all far off now when the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company-Admiralty (ie., monetary contribution from the Admiralty that had been under negotiation) or no Admiralty-will for itself require a dock that will take in the enlarged sizes of steamers that are now in course of becoming the rule instead of the exception, and which the Company's present two docks cannot take in. Only this week we have had to declare our inability, by reason of our docks being too short and too shallow, to take in a Messageries Maritimes steamer, and the Prinz Heinrich' also we had to refuse for the same reason. Steamers coming out this way are getting bigger and bigger, so this question of a large dock is still going to press upon us, and it certainly should be reckoned on as a matter to be taken into account. You know the position of some of the members of the Board here; they like waiting for directions or guidance from their own headquarters."

A BIG NEW DOCK.

Then, on 15th September, 1899, I again wrote to London, inter alia, the following:-

The Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, to meet its own up-to-date requirements, will soon have to provide a much enlarged dock, quite irrespective of what it had been hoped would have been arranged with the Admiralty. I have been looking into the beum' dimensions of some of the steamers that are now frequenters of this port and these go instructively to support what has been written before, viz. :--that the port must have (and should have soon) a dry dock that will admit the enlarged sizes of steamers, which in the trade touching at Singapore, are now in course of becoming the rule, instead of the exception. And if the port is to possess such a dock, it will have to get I don't know whether I have it through the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company.

vet said so, but I think the need of a big dock is fully as important as the question of wharf extension. I am not sure that I should not even rank the former as coming first in the importance of the ultimate advantages which it must bring to the Company."

NO AMBIGUITY.

MR. MANISTY'S REPORT.

Now, gentlemen, I don't think that any Shareholder here or in Europe can find much doubt or ambiguity not only in the spirit and intention of these writings, but in their clearness of expression also. They were too strong to be ignored, and the London Committee, pressed by my predecessor in the chair, who was in London at the time, decided to engage an engineer to come out to Singapore to investigate matters on the spot, and tell them what ought to be done. They got the services of a civil engineer of high qualifications, a Mr. Edwd. Manisty, M. Inst. *C.E., M.I.M.E., who visited Singapore for this purpose, and made his report on the 27th February, 1900. Mr. Manisty's recommendations were strong; they more than endorsed what I had been urging,-extensions of wharf and wet dock accommodation, more warehouses, &c., and a new large dry dock; and the estimated cost of what he recommended-taking the mean of different systems of construction,- amounted to between £600,000 and £700,000.

SIMPLY PIGEON-HOLED.

And what happened on Mr. Manisty's report and recommendation of four years ago? Practically nothing.

The London Consulting Committee pigeon-holed his report, and did not even consider that the Shareholders should be taken into as much confidence as would have been shown by its being circulated to them. And, when at a later date I reminded them of this, they coolly wrote me that they could not find record of the Directors in Singapore having recom- mended that Mr. Manisty's proposals should be adopted and proceeded with. That is an example of how the Committee rules and directs, and then screens itself when there is any attempt to pull it to account. Those men know as well as I do that each senior in London wrote out privately to his junior seated on this Board that Mr. Manisty's recommendations, in view of their cost, were, in their view, impossible; they knew and know in the face of that that no resolution of the Board to the contrary could be carried, and that, it would be futile to attempt to carry one. They knew, too, that Mr. Manisty's recommendations had not only been initiated from this side, but had been most vigorously represented, recommended, and urged by me; and they knew, too, full well, that this Board could not, and still cannot,- enter into any expenditure beyond $50,000 without first obtaining the London Committee's sanction and approval.

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BOWDLERISED MINUTES.

THE CHAIRMAN'S HEAVIEST BURDEN TO SHIELD LONDON's NOMINEES.

And if the Shareholders do not already know it, let me here tell them that the minutes of the Directors' Meetings here are very far indeed from representing what the Directors here feel and express at the Board table, and what they could and would do were the Directorate not largely comprised of men who are dictated to and directed by their seniors in London, whose dictations and directions they must obey. (Sensation.)

The late Chairman's friendly warning to me when I first took over from him the Chair- manship of this Company is one that I most certainly have had cause to find accurate. He said: -

"The burden you will find weigh most heavily on you will be the difficulty of so steering a course for the Board in Singapore that will not bring those Directors who are nominees of London into conflict with their seniors; for if this happens they must in self-preservation and defence come into conflict with you."

Never was more accurate measure taken nor truer word spoken; and many has been the occasion when opinions have been strongly expressed at our Directors' meetings which if recorded would have brought retribution from London, and which, therefore, have had to be left unrecorded.

DUAL CONTROL DISASTROUS.

With the dual control and management that the London Committee has introduced and established in the conduct of all the affairs of this Company and that they are determined not only to maintain but to extend, any man cannot but know that it must be absolutely impossible to conduct the business and affairs of the Company with satisfactory results to all interests, so long as there is even the semblance of that dual control, which the London Consulting Committee has gradually brought into a very real and active existence. It has brought about on this Directorate the not infrequent attitude of what is termed "sitting astride the fence."

The attitude and acts of these London gentlemen are unconstitutional, as a study of that part of our Articles of Association that refer to the London Committee will, I think, show you. They have very greatly, and as far as we can judge unnecessarily, increased the cont of our London agency. Without so much as ever consulting or conferring with this Head Office, let alone getting its approval, they took upon themselves to enter into a lease for larger and more expensive premises in London than those that had served the Company and served it quite well enough for many years. It does not require large and expensive premises to meet all the needs of this Company in London, which, when all told, amount to as much room as will accommodate three office men, who can attend to the execution of our indents,--and whom we have often much wished could be got to execute these more expeditiously. Apparently it was rather a shock to the Consulting Committee that the landlords of these new and more expensive London premises would not take their execution to the lease-which thus had to be sent out with a request that it must be executed by the Head Office in Singapore.

MR. ANDERSON'S SECOND REQUISITION FOR EXTENSION.

From a visit to London I left there for Singapore early in 1901. When I was then at home, the London Committee invited, I may say pressed me, to take the chair of this Company ou my return to Singapore. At interviews with some of them I endeavoured to pin them to an expression of what their policy would be. But they were not to be pinned. I told one leading member of the Committee that the curse of this Company had been the way in which its shares had been raised in market value; that it had become second nature in them to resist large capital outlay, now become absolutely necessary, seeing that this could only reduce dividends and lower the value of their shares, and I told him also that if I had my own way I would spend an amount of money in bringing the Company up to date that would assuredly not be palatable to those whose desire was more in the direction of dividends for the present day.

And after I arrived back in Singapore and had been appointed Chairman of the Company, I again, on September 26, 1901, wrote to London laying stress on the pressing necessity of considering the Company's needs in the following directions, viz. :—

(A) Increased and extended berthing for vessels.

(B) Increased warehouse accommodation such as "sorting out and delivering " warehouses, as well as increased accommodation for prolonged storage.

(c) Mechanical appliances for saving labour.

(D) Railway systems for receiving cargo direct from steamers' derricks and conveying

it straight away; also for the more rapid and economical transport and handling thereof or bunkering.

(E) The question of stronger and more permanent wharf design and structure as bearing necessarily on the laying down of plant that will be involved under (c) and (v), and in this connection the side question of wider wharf space between ships and water side warehouses.

(F) The urgent need of a big dry dock (in an uncramped position) such as will fully meet the requirements of any large and modern steamer, of which large and increasing numbers now visit this port.

After all that I had written, said, recommended, pressed as necessary, and urged should be done, you will imagine my surprise on discovering that among other kindly representations that members of the Committee in London strongly pre-impressed our first Managing Director

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