THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Cost of Cyanide plant about Payment to the Fenjom Pahang Cro- ditors in order to obtain possession of Jalis
$12,000 | 890
""
23,000
L
Mr. Blamey back after his long and wearying recovery from the off ots of the ac- cident to his arm. Mr. Blamey was of great assistance to us while in Australia in various ways. During Mr. Blamey's absence Mr. Phillips was in charge and currying on the duties in a thoroughly satisfactory manner, and his long experience of the mine and the country have always made his services particularly valuable to the Company. Mr Jolly, who was employed for many years by the old Company, has been en- vaged as our engineer, and his local knowledge | Salaries of Europeans exolusive of Miners and and acquaintance with the Malay language is
Millmen about.
$11.300 very valuable to us, We have not yet taken out a 8,000 | lease for any part of our cincessjon, as we were Royalty on the gold won
Now Boiler. now 9-inch pump and
various machinery
10,000 The iten" Administration Accouut. calls for some explanation. The account includes the expenses at the mines apart from the actual cost | of mining and milling and other itens given in the Bilvio, Sheet. The principal items in the amonut are as follows:-
Wages to coolies on work outside of mia-
in, etc.
Payments for Concession
Agencies...
Hospital charges
Freight and shipping : Roads, eto...
uncertain as to the direction the Todes would 5,000 prove to run; we hop^, the Bre, that the now- 3.700 disonveries will enable us to locatour ground at 4400 Jalis and obtain from the state a fifty years' lease 800 similar to that granted to the Ranh Company. 3.50)| 【 shall be glad to hear the remarks of any share. 1,000 holder present.
-The balanos of about $1.600 being spent in new bouses, carts, sundry stores, repairs, and a small expenditure on the dam. The cost of working, exolading the head office expenses and allowing for the profit on stores and opium, for the past year 1894 is $124 per ton of ore mined and milled, and under $14 inolnding head office and all expenses, while the gost per ton for the year 93 was $173 excluding head offica er penses and $20 including head offles and all This is a marked improvement which is very satisfactory. For your informa. tion would say that in the Mining Journal I 'found a return given of a Johanuisburg company which was dealing with about the same quan tities and ore of about the same value as ours, and the cost was per mouth-
expenses
Mining 1,437 tons value 11
dwts per ton Milling
General charges
208. 7d. 108 31. 48. 4tl.
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Mr. ANDREW JOHNSTON-In last year's ao- count there was no mention of this item
'administraținu "in the accounts.
The CHAIRMEN No.
Mr. J›HNST_N~Can you give any explanation of why a different system has been adopted in making out the accounts ?
- The CHAIRMAN-It was thought best to keep thess items noder o in heading we now show mining, mi ling, and general pīpensas in a separate acconut, the same as the companies at Last year the Cape. It makes no difference. the management was merged in the mining and milling noonust.
Mr. FRASER SMITH suggested that the dis- cussion would be put in order if some one moved the adoption of the report and accounts.
The CHAIRMAN proposed the adoption of the report and bilance sheet.
Mr. R. C. WILC X seconded.
Mr. KIRKWOOD-But you say £3 104. in your report. Would it not be better to refine our gold at the mines?
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The CHAIRMAN-It requires a skilled assiyer to refine gold, and Mr. Blamey has stated that as soon as the assayer arrives at the mines all gold turned ont may be refined there.
(January 17, 1805.
ponses:
Hoid Offia, $6:26); fogal expenses, $3.251; Director's fees, $2.50 ),” or a total of $12,000. It therefore costs us $1,000 pɔr mváth to run the concern here, which seems to me to be a loss of 3 per cent ou the whole capital.
The CHAIRMAN—Have you inclulod in your calculations the amount written off? If you dednot the $15,000 it mak ́s a great deal of dif- ference.
Mr. KIRKWOOD-But surely these expenses are very heavy. We have altogether for lawyers $3,600.
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The CHAIRMAN-We had good deal of ex- ponse over the London Company; That is ua- usual expense. I hope it will not happen again.
Mr. KIRKWOOD-I hope not. Thanks. * Mr. R. U OKE-Don't you think $46,000 is a great deal to write off in a Company where the capital is only $220.000 P. I think it is very oz. cessive I should not like to see the Dock Com. piny, for instance, write off 20 per cent, of the capital for depreciation, (Hear, hear). I should think something was going very much wrong if that were done. (Applause.)
The CHAIRMAN-I hoped I had explained all this in my speech. Although we made a profit of $45.000, we bave not had that in hand. I certainly would not have thought of applying it, if it had been hard cash in hand, to write down any portion of our property. That money has simply been spent in order to provide new ma. chinery and to pay off old debts. It is simply a book entry in order to account for the proft wa have made. We have not got oash in hand, but we thought we should apply this profit to what we ought to have had sufficient capital for în the first instance.
Mr WILCOX-You mean that this sum of $45.000 has been spent on capital account really.
The CHAIRMAN—Yes.
Mr. Cook-I notios you wrote off only $10,000 last year. Why should you write off so mnch this year?
The CHAIRMAN-Because we made $45,000 instead of $25,000..
Mr. Coo¤¤—Well, we shareholders are begin- i bave been ning to get auxious for dividends. a shareholder for a long time. I think a Com- pany like this should begin to pay dividends to the shareholders. (Hear, hear). You almost promised as much last year, and you promised a better output; and we were led to believe that all this money would not be expended—at least, not in the way it has been. If we are to go on spend- mouey like this for new machinery ant canide processes, when are we to expeot divi- dends ?
The CHAIRMAN-You can't get money unless you spend some.
Mr. COOKE-Yes; but we are spending it un- reasonably.
The CHAIRMAN—We have certainly made an improvement-I think you will admit that-in the cost of working. We have been very un- fortunate. We are dealing with 11 dwts, against 17 dwts. last year. If we had had the same quality of ore as last year we would have come before you with a nice balance.
Mr. COOKE-Why spend money ou new machinery if you are not earning money ?
Mr. J. KIRKWOOD -I would call your atten- tion to paragraph 7 of the report. You state. 35s. 2d there, during the year 9. 74 tons of ore were or say 317) per too. I recognize, however, that mined and milled, yielding 5,428 ounces of gold. we ought to work somewhat cheaper than the Also 645 tons of headings, being the ore left by Capa-bear, bear)—and I think we can rely on the old Chinese working, yielding 66 ounces of Mr. Blamey to reduce expenditure in every way gold, making a total output of 5,554 ounces, for he cân, as I am certain no one is more anxious | which yon realized $183,278.29. That gives the than he is that such a profit should be made that | value of the gold as $33 per ounce, which, taking there will be a balancs left for the sharehold. } a fair rate according to the exchange at present, ers and not only for the mine. We were very | gives £3 104 per ounce. The price of standard pleased to see that the long projected road | gold is £3 178. 64, so that means that we are from Kwala Kubu to Kwala Lipis is at last losing 10 per cent. on our total output. Is thereing b-ing vigorously pushed on. The construo ion anything the matter with the grade ottore, or of this road, which we hope will pass within 3 how do you sell it P miles of Jalis, will be of immense assistance to us The CHAIRMAN-The price of what is reckoned The Cyanide plant was ordered and is at the mine pure gold is £3 17s. 9d. ; our average is £3 128. The erection has been greatly delayed by annsnal-or £3 13. 6., which is considered a good quality ly heavy rains which have prevailed all over Pa of gold. There is, as you may know, a good deal bang, and we do not think the plant will be at of silver in our gold. work until March The chemist, Mr. White, reports that the tailings and concentrates are very anitable for the treatment, as also the water. The plant is supposed to treat 1,000 tons daily per month, and as we have a large stock of tailings besides the results of our crashings we hope that the success of the present plant will soon justify us în increasing the plant to the full capacity of our milling power. A satisfactory agreement has been made with the Cassels Company, and we are granted the sole use in Pahang, and I trast that there will be sme profit gained by licensing to other companies. The success of the process is undoubted and it only remains for us to see if we can work it at a cheap and economical rate. If there were even a moderate capital in hand the Board would take into serions consideration the more active development of the large concession we hold of 100 square miles; for there are many places which bave been so far prospected as to warrant further and more vigorous work. Gubin to the north, which you will remember gave splendid results, only needs a moderato amount to open out a mine which even in these days of sensational West. Austra: lian mines would be well worth the attention of Mr. KIRKWOOD-Would it ant bo better to home investors; and laugkong to the south state the whole amount given us was considered by the former manager of the The CHAIRMAN-We don't know what the greatest value. Another point is the question of value of the gold is going to be. We generally water power, and by the expenditure of got about 90 per cent, in advance.
whole of the capital the
mine plant of and mill of fifty stamps could be worked by water power, and this question will be forced -ou ́us sooner or later when our reservės fira wood get exhausted. I need hardly say that there would be a large economy, but only with the expenditure of capital. We were glad to
Mr. KIRKWOOD-Under the heading of Assets-accounts receivable. I see you set down Part value of gold, August ofnshing, $15,287; Sept., $10252; Balance due, June crushing, 3809,14; July. $306.25." What is the meaning If it is not the of these words part value " whole, where are the other parts P. One looks in vain for them in the report, and it would be interesting to know what the parts are.
The CHAIRMAN-When our gold is received. at Singapore from the mine we get advances upon it from the Bank; the Bank sends the gold to London and then it is sold there to the Mint. When the accounts of the sales come back, the balances are put to our credit. What you see in the accounts for June and July are the balances of the advances we had previously received for those two months,
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Mr. KIRKWOOD-With regard to the working account. I make it that we have spent $195,000 during the past year to produce $189,000 worth of gold, or, in other words, it costs us $19.50 for Of course, I every $19 worth of gold made. do not include value of stores and opium. I also understand that we have had excessive ex-
The CHAIRMAN-Because I think the adop tion of the cyanide process will be our salvation. We have assets in the shape of tailings and con- centrates lying on the ground and not producing you anything. Surely if it is put before you that you will get 70 or 80 where you were get- ting ouly 17, 18, or 20 thousand, you will not object.
Mr. COOKE-1 understood the cyanide process was not to be adoptel without the sanction of the shareholders. I do not recollect the share- holders having sanctaed this spending of I think before money for the evanide process. you launched on into this $12,000 or what- ever it is, we should Lave been told about it. You called a meeting first of all to sanotion this. and it was not sanstioned, and you ought to have called a meeting afterwards before adopting it. I do not recollect a meeting being called to sanction this.
Mr. LEWIS-The object of the first meeting called was to find out whether we should make call to establish the cyanide process Except as regards the call it was left to the discretion of the directors to deal with it.
The CHA RM 37—One reason, if you will re- member, why that meeting was called-I distinot- ly stated the object at th time; it would never have been called at all and the shareholders
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