CO882-(6-8) — Page 469

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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at home that all their sins of omission and commission, and anything doubtful that existed in the bargain made by them for this Company, should be gracefully wiped out. This could most simply be done by getting the Board and the Chairman here to do some act in the face of which they could not again consistently open their mouths, or breathe objections against what had been done in this particular matter in the past. So a letter was written to me by one of the London gentlenen (very peculiarly it was the same one who had alleged that I was much wanting in wisdom) saying that it would be such a nice and graceful recognition to the gentleman who had acted as intermediary in this matter of amalgamation, and had accomplished such a great deal of good service to the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company over the amalgamation, if I could prevail on the Board to vote the cost of an oil portrait of him to be hung in the Board-room, so that the Directors could keep him well in memory. (Laughter.) And to kill another bird with the one diplomatic cast the writer at the same time proposed, in order to keep his favours well within the Straits circle, to give the work to an artist thus connected, the son of a dear friend. These suggestions, however, did not seem to find favour in Singapore. At any rate this Directorate, as far as I know, had no intention of wasting the Shareholders' money in decorating the wall of the Board-room with oil portraits of any men whose attitude and actions towards them and towards the community of Singapore have certainly given the impression that in the view of these men this Board and the Eastern Shareholders are not worth considering or consulting. If this Board were to do so, it would, I am afraid, earn the already pronounced verdict of London,--though I still hope, as far as Singapore is concerned, it is one not yet merited-of being "much wanting in wisdom."

AXE-GRINDING EXTRAORDINARY.

MONOPOLY WITHIN MONOPOLY.

And not only is this London Committee an obstruction to the better working of the Company, but there lies also in the existence of this body some danger to our working here, from "axe-grinding" tendencies of individual members of the Committee. You all know that one of the businesses of this Company is that of warehousemen, that is, we store merchandise for the general public at certain tariff charges per week or month, or as the case may be. This is a branch of our business and a source of revenue that the Directors of this Company have been striving to extend, and that it is their policy to extend, I mean to anyone and everyone, all on the same footing, of course. The day of merchants here owning their own storage accommodation in town for imports must come to an end by reason of the high and increasing value of town and river-side property, and that is the opportunity that it is part of the policy of this Company to profit by. And with this outlook we aim at the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company becoming custodians and storers, on the "warrant" system, of much of the import merchandise that comes here.

Well, one of these London gentlemen conceived the happy idea that it would be a good thing that the Tanjong-Pagar Dock Company should, on its own property, build for his Singapore firm a big warehouse; the warehouse itself was to have been of an area between half and three-quarters of an acre; this to be leased, the whole building,-to this gentlemen's firm solely. In other words to be constructed with capital to be laid out by this Company, the firm of one of the members of the London Consulting Committee was to have a special building put up on our property, leased exclusively to themselves, in which they were to be their own warehousemen, to advantage over those less favoured outsiders who would not be possessed of such an advantage from the Company. This proposal the Directors promptly and very properly threw out. Of course it was argued, and we were assured, that it was in the Company's interests that the proposal was made and urged. Most people would think that it was the business of the Directors, and of these alone, to consider and décide such a question, and you would think, too, that when they had decided against it that would end the matter. Nothing of the kind; the gentlemen on the London Committee interested in this matter returned to the charge, wrote a memorandum on the subject and the proposal again was brought forward and urged. It ended, as far as the Directors were concerned, in the same way as the first attempt, for the Directors naturally want business of this kind for the Shareholders of the Company in general, and not for individual firms, who would thus obtain advantages over other constituents of the Company.

CASE OF THE TRAMWAY Co.

A CONVENIENCE TO T. P.: A GOOD PRICE.

I will give you another instance of how the local affairs of this Company are managed and directed in London. The "Singapore Tramways, Limited;" when they came here to commence their operations, applied to purchase from this Company a piece of ground at Tanjong Pagar for its power station and car and waggon depôt, and they indicated where they would like it. Naturally the question the Board here asked itself was: Is it going to uit the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company to have this part of the Tramway Company's establishment at its door?" Well, as any of you can judge, it happened to be not only what the Directors thought would excellently suit this Company, but what they thought even most important to get arranged.

You will understand this when I tell you that one of the great troubles at Tanjong-Pagar is the frequent recurrence of periods of congestion, arising from not being able to get in-coming cargo taken away from the water-side, warehouses quickly enough, and those of you who know how cargoes are tumbled out at our wharves one on top of the other in continuous and often rapid succession, the difficulties over periodical inadequate supply of manual labour, difficulties through wearity of the antiquated means of bullock carte, delays and blocks from cattle disease, &c., will readily understand how the Directons one and all the whole body in unanimity appreciated the idea and advantage of having established at some one else's heavy cost, on the outlying border of our property, at our own door as it were, an establishment to which

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we only had to hold up our finger to get on our premises at any time that we might want them as many electric goods-waggons at an hour's notice as we might need to obviate or relieve copgestion, whenever it threatened.

BUT THE OFFER CANCELLED.

As a matter of fact, the whole Board to a man, London's nominees, Managing Director, and everyone,decided this was an opportunity of getting without cost to ourselves at our door what must prove a ready facility of great value to us, and such as we could not of ourselves provide. I must tell you that the London Committee had already been pressing us to realize money by selling some of our valuable land, a course against which, in a general sense, I, for one, am stoutly opposed. In my own view not a foot of this Company's ground should be sold except for very exceptional reasons. Land in our locality is only in its com- mencement of rising, and must rise a great deal higher. We shall yet need a very great deal of it to erect for ourselves buildings in which as a matter of policy I have advocated that many hundreds of our employees-not merely European but Chinese-should be brought more under the Company's control and command by being given the advantage of tenancy on easy terms. We shall want our land for expansion and extension in the future to a degree that will very far exceed anything in the past. We, moreover, want our land as further security for large borrowings that this Company will now have to negotiate for big works of improvement. development, and expansion.

And yet these gentlemen in London press us to sell land so as to produce working capital. And yet again, in the face of their own advocacy to us to sell land, when we had actually made alefinite offer of a piece of our outlying land to the Tramway Company and at a full price too-an offer that if we accepted was judged here by the whole Board to exactly it in with our purposes, they vetoed it.

The site asked for by the Tramway Company it did not suit our own plans to give them. but we offered them another site on the outside border of our property, away from possible interference or conflict with our plans for the future. The whole thing site, price, conditions, were most carefully and exhaustively thought out by the Board, the Managing Director and our engineer. I should tell you here, that because the firm that I represent happens to have business connection with the Tramway Company, I took no part in this matter beyond laying it fully before the Board. I was most careful, as one would naturally be in such a situation, to take no part or voice in the decisions arrived at, and even warned and advised my colleagues they would be wise in a case of this kind to take outside expert opinion, which they did. Well, on the unanimous decision of the whole Board (exclusive of myself) a firm offer" was given to the Tramway Company of a site that was calculated admirably to suit our Company, and that, too, at a price that was considered most satisfactory to us. The offer was given in hand" for a time long enough for the Tramway Engineers to submit it to their principale, in England.

The London Committee, who at that very time had been urging us to sell land, on getting advice of what we had done, immediately cabled out a peremptory command to the Board to at once cancel the offer before it could be accepted, and a back door private message was at the same time sent to each representative on the Board of those London gentlemen that they must obey and support the Committee in getting the offer cancelled; and this was done.

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We know that the Tramway Company desired to accept our offer. Well, we learned afterwards what the London gentlemen were driving at, and I could, if it would serve any good purpose, tell you of how some member of the London Committee had the kindness to suggest that I was personally interested in the Tramway Company acquiring this site. I do not, however, wish to intrude my personal affairs upon your notice, and the gentleman" in question must have been sufficiently humiliated by the rebuff that he met with at the hands of the whole Board here, in my absence, including even his own nominee and junior partner.

A BOARD-ROOM MOTTO.

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These are the men in London who are doing so much to help along the affairs of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, and whose motto "to politely steer clear of local knowledge and experience," should be painted around the walls of the Board-room. Well, the Tramway Company have got a site for their power station and for their car and waggon depût, but it is not the one from which if it had been at our door, we should have expected-I believe any thinking man would have expected--that we would derive special and exceptional advantages. Now they are settled and fixed three miles away from us, on a site that they got at a price a long way below what they would have paid us for ours.

Time, I fear, will prove that in this instance, above all others, this Company will be severe sufferers by the motto that enjoins that " local experience and knowledge shall be politely steered clear of.

SIR HENRY MCCALLUM IN 1895.

ALSO CONDEMNED LONDON COMMITTEE.

As far back as 1895 a strong representation was made to this Company here, by a then prominent member and large Shareholder--a gentleman who is now Governor of an important Imperial Colony--in which, among other things, he severely criticised the constitution of the London Consulting Committee and the relationship of the gentlemen forming that body to Those on the Directorate. This Shareholder had obtained a very intimate knowledge of and insight into his subject, and the remonstrances that he then raised were on behalf not only of himself but of other Shareholders also, who had conferred with him. Well, the anomalies that he then deemed it necessary to draw attention to and to invite,reotification of, exist to-day but with very much more acute disadvantage to the working of the Company. In consequenc of the position of "dictators," into which the London Consulting Committee have brought

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