Dearie:Russell Family History

F.M.S. Chamber of Mines Report No 8. August 1918 , also published in The Straits Echo Mail Edition, No. 34 Vol. 1d, 21 August 1918, and The Malay Mail, Wednesday, August 14, 1918 and MALAYAN COLLIERIES. [Articles] The Straits Times, 20 August 1918, Page 7

Malayan Collieries Fifth Annual Report. The report of the directors of Malayan Collieries for the year ended June 30, 1918, states: - The directors have pleasure in submitting their fifth annual report and statement of accounts for the year ended June 30, 1918. During the year application was made for the conversion of a further 1,150 acres to mining lease (making a total area under lease of approximately 3,117 acres) while the prospecting licence was renewed over the balance of the concession, Although at the end of the year no new plant from home had been erected, shipments of boilers, pumps, fan parts and electrical machinery were beginning to arrive, while a good deal of plant has been locally purchased and installed in the open cast mines. Coal sales totalled 161,272 tons as against 135,663 tons for the last financial year, an increase of 25,609 tons. The coal production would have been larger but for part of the Company’s plant being commandeered by the home authorities, and for the great shortage of labour experienced at the mine. A second and large diamond drill set having arrived from Home, prospecting was vigorously carried out during the year and a further area of the seams proved. An extension of about three miles to the Company’s private railway line was put in hand; 40lb. rails for this purpose being purchased in America. The Board profoundly regret to record that during the year Mr. F. J. B. Dykes suddenly died in London from heart failure. Mr. R. C. Russell was on his way to England at the time and took over the London agency work. Messrs. Foster Brown and Rees of Cardiff and London, continued as the Company’s consulting engineers, and also rendered valuable services to the late Mr. Dykes and afterwards to Mr. R. C. Russell, in connection with the Company’s applications for priority certificates, etc. Mr. Eric Sinkinson, of Imperial College of Science and Technology, proceeded with his investigation and succeeded in producing an excellent quality of briquettes. A satisfactory trial of these briquettes was made at Leeds on a commercial scale. The profits for the year, subject to Directors’ fees amount to $375,453.03 to which has been added the balance brought forward from last year’s account of $59,734.21, making available for distribution $435,187.24, which the directors recommend should be dealt with as follows: - In payment of a dividend of 12 and half percent, upon 150,000 shares $187,500.00; to Mine Amortisation Reserve $75,000.00; to a General Reserve £150,000; balance to be carried forward to next year’s accounts $22,687.24. The retiring directors are Mr. Alexander Grant Mackie and Mr. John Archibald Russell who being eligible, offer themselves for re- election. The Auditors Messrs. Barker & Co., resigned during the year, the directors appointing Messrs. Evatt & Co., in their stead. Messrs. Evatt & Co., now retire but offer themselves for re- election.

The Malay Mail 30 August 1918 and Malayan Collieries. [Articles] The Straits Times, 4 September 1918, Page 12

Malayan Collieries. Profiteering Charges Chairman’s Answer. The fifth annual meeting of shareholders in Malayan Collieries, Ltd., was held at the Registered offices of the Company, 8-10 Loke Yew Buildings, Kuala Lumpur, on August 24th at 11 am. Mr. J. A. Russell (Chairman of Directors) presided. Mr. J. McEwan for the secretaries read the notice convening the meeting, and also the minutes of the last meeting, which were confirmed. The annual statement of accounts and balance sheet and the report of the directors and auditors were submitted to the meeting. The Chairman in moving their adoption said: - Gentlemen, -The report and accounts having been in your hands for the specified period, with your permission I shall take them as read. Before moving their adoption, however, I will make my usual comments upon the items in the balance sheet before you. Taking the debit side first the call in arrears of $1.06 is due from a shareholder at the front and will be deducted from the dividend which to-day becomes payable to him. The unclaimed dividends amounting to $1,818.80 are likewise mainly due to shareholders who have gone Home to fight leaving no address behind them. Every endeavour has been made to keep this item as low as possible. “Sundry creditors” totaling $82,867.40 consists of wages, Government royalty, and freight due by the Company for June account, and has since been paid. The Reserve for the Bad Debts stands at $10.000 as before. The profit I will remark upon when coming to the profit and loss account. Turning now to the credit side, you will see that “ mine property” remains the same at $1,003,474.50, while “mine development” is decreased from $146.748.32 to $100,000, $46,748.32 having been written off to allow, on the manager’s estimation, for depreciation during the year in the value of what is technically known as the “ main roads”. Future construction of those “ main roads” which are not of permanent utility is being charged to revenue. “ Buildings” at $86,980 shows only a small addition, “ plant and machinery”, if we include the two items “plant in transit” and “ plant suspense account”, is increased by $313,592.16 making a total of $495,627.84. From this figure has been deducted $46,817.28 for depreciation. “Plant suspense account” is plant already purchased but not yet shipped. The extra plant consists of new Babcock boilers, mechanical stokers, motors switch boards and starters, a new large ventilating fan, pumps, piping, rails, cables etc. Our stock of mining stores stands at $63,817.93 as compared with stores on hand last year valued at $34,703.26. Coal on hand at the end of the year was only worth $1,325. At the closing of accounts we were owed for coal the sum of $136,588.89, and that this amount was no larger is due to the strenuous endeavours made at the end of our financial year to get in as large a proportion as possible of the outstandings. Although due to unremitting care we have few bad debts nevertheless you will observe you will observe that we require quite a considerable sum to finance our coal sales. Cash in banks at the end of the financial year was $148.058.46, of which $45,000 was on fixed deposit. There was a further small sum in the Kuala Lumpur office and at the mine of $380.15. Our total cash balance is considerably smaller than it was last year, for although our profits are higher the unavoidable calls upon our resources for fresh plant and new development expenditure have been even greater. Turning now to the profit and loss account, wages and salaries at the mine are much higher than they were for the previous year, amounting as they do to $377,407.29, while if we include management salaries and fees, the total amount on this account is nearly $400,000. We used practically $50,000 worth of mine stores and mining timber during the year. We paid to the Railway Department $160,951.22 for rail freight, while we further paid to the Government a sum for royalty and quit rent of $41,600.20. We spent upon prospecting the area still held under prospecting licence a sum of $9,611.15, but this does not include European supervision, depreciation of diamond drill, nor even the whole of the coolie labour, if all these items were added the sum would be considerably larger- more than double. Mining wear and tear is very great and our depreciation is bound to be heavy; it cost us for the year under review a total of $105.434.76, but this is without amortisation, which is not shown in the profit and loss account, although in strict theory it ought really to appear there. Coal research expenses are seemingly very low for the amount of work done, but we shall have a comparatively large bill to meet upon the conclusion of the English experiments. The coal sales for the twelve month yielded a gross return of $1.141,687.42, while sundry other items brought the Company in a return $15,892.01 to which has been added another $1,325, being the value of coal on hand at the end of the year. After deducting, mining, selling and other charges, the Company has made for the year, subject to Directors’ fees and to an allowance to be made for amortization, $375,453.03. To this profit has to be added the balance brought forward from the previous year’s account of $59,734.21, making a total nominally available for distribution of $435,187.24. This amount, however, is not actually available, for you will have noticed that the bulk of the sum has had to be reinvested in the mine, so that the cash in hand and at the banks is really insufficient to pay a ten per cent dividend. Had this money not been re-invested in the mine, our output would have sunk to a tonnage alarmingly small. I shall presently move the declaration of a dividend of 12 and half per cent for the year’s working, but I would here explain, so far as I, personally, am concerned, I would as soon prefer it was not more than one of 10 per cent. However, it is realized that the purchasing power of money is not what it was, so that a present dividend of 12 per cent is actually equal to one of 10 per cent a year ago, when, as a matter of fact, this Company distributed in all 13 and half percent. Your directors have therefore, decided to recommend a distribution at a higher rate, especially as by the date of today’s meeting cash in hand has been accumulated sufficient to meet the payment of such a declaration. Twelve and half per cent will absorb $187,500 leaving $247,687.24 for amortization and reserve. In business other than mines, perishable assets have to be properly depreciated and the amount of such depreciation charged against profit and loss accounts. A mine being a wasting asset, according to the above rule no dividends should be distributed until the amount of capital lost has first been made good out of revenue; by popular usage, however, mines have been allowed in their Memorandum and Articles of Association to provide that they need not set apart a sinking fund to meet the depreciation in the value of their wasting properties. But it is now the modern practice most of the best coal and iron companies to charge against revenue account a sufficient amount of depreciation to maintain their capital against wastage, doing so from a sound business point of view without regard to whether it might or might not legally be required to charge such depreciation. Your Board are of the opinion that this is the course the Company should adopt, but they prefer, by creating an amortization reserve, to keep a record in the balance sheet of the amounts from year to year so written off rather than put the depreciation against revenue. At 2 and half per cent per annum the capital of the Company would be redeemed in 40 years time, and as the principal lease has from date another 38 years to run, it is proposed to set aside from the profits of this year 5% per cent upon the capital of the Company, absorbing $75,000, and for each succeeding year a further 2 and half per cent. As I have said, I would ask you always to regard this amount not as an ordinary allocation of profits to reserve, but as a depreciation which perhaps more properly, if not legally, should appear in the profit and loss account, yet which for the sake of record and of future dealings it is convenient for us to show as an appropriation to special amortization fund. It is further proposed to place to General Reserve Fund, re-invested in the mine, $150.000 of the profits, as representing part of the money expended during the year in the purchase of additional plant. This leaves to be carried forward, subject to directors’ fees and a bonus to mine staff, a balance of $22,687.24. You would probably now like to hear from me something regarding the outlook. Our immediate future is, I almost might say, entirely concerned with one subject: “output”. There is no lack of demand for our coal; but the monthly production, instead of increasing as it should do, I regret to have to say is remaining stationary. Lack of labour and plant are the two causes of this. The commandeering by the War Office of our generators upon their completion at Home was a severe blow to us, while the non-arrival of our mechanical coal- cutting plant and underground electric locomotives leaves us still entirely in the hands of labour. The output of coal from opencasts which was intended to relieve the situation, such workings not needing the employment of skilled underground miners, has been negligible. This misfortune is due to the delay in connecting up by rail the open cast workings with the main line, the rails purchased for the purpose in America having been shipped by sailing vessel and therefore taking several months to arrive. The question of labour is most serious, and but for it we should be producing well over 700 tons a day. The high price of tin has made the demand for skilled labour so great that our hewers even though making more than $3 a day will not stay, and, when they do stay will not work. They cannot earn so high a wage as this on a tin mine, but on tin mines the work is so incomparably less arduous than it is on our own that they are easily able to work 25 days in a month and consider they are having an easy time, while in the Colliery they maintain that they cannot put in more than from 15 to 20 days work and yet feel they are leading a slave’s existence. In condemning them for laziness, the fact has to be kept well in mind that the Southern Chinese has not the stamina of the European miner, and most of them are physically incapable of working 25 days in the month at coal-hewing. Where our trouble again comes in is that the miner will not permit others to work at his particular working place on the days he himself is not doing so. As the hewers work only 15 to 20 days in the month, by this dog-in-the-manger attitude a large number of our available places are continually idle, and the mine is being operated at considerably less than its producible capacity. We cannot open more working places as owing to the commandeering of our generators we could not pump or ventilate them. When we have attempted to disregard the hewers in the matter of reserving to them their working places, we have lost numbers of men. It is our opinion that if we considerably raised the hewers rates to something exorbitant, but making the increase rather a bonus upon footage than a rise in the tonnage rate, we could attract the physically strongest underground miners in the Peninsula, thus increasing our number of mine working hours. Moreover, if we made our rates so attractive that hewers were able to earn over treble the wages they could at any other mine in the country, we do not think we should find them so independent as they now are when we endeavored to enforce that the working places be more efficiently manned. But here we are faced with a fresh difficulty. Your Board has also the financial interests of shareholders to consider besides that of increasing the country’s coal production, so, although we have never charged just whatever high price we could obtain for coal, making large profits out of the countrys’ necessities, and although further we have always remembered that in times like these there are more important matters to be considered than solely that of shareholders profits, still, to this policy there must, of course, be limits. If we raise hewer’s rates we must, if we wish to pay even the small dividends that we are doing, also raise the price of coal. Owing, however, to the agitation of certain miners, the Government has given us to understand that it cannot regard with favour any great increase in the price of coal to the public; so I fear we shall be unable to ameliorate our labour problems. Now with reference to the complaints against us of one or two of our tin mining customers, what you may ask, are the facts? Before stating them, you may be interested first to hear that instead of those consumers who objected to the price of their coal being raised having asked us for figures, their method seems to have been to have written privately to H.E. the High Commissioner, or perhaps it was to the Chief Secretary, making a number of allegations that Malayan Collieries were sordidly profiteering. However I need not touch at any length upon that point of the matter. I think that the few figures I will now proceed to give will somewhat surprise you. If anything they understate the real position, but divide them by half, even divide them by three and the result is still sufficiently astonishing. The price ruling in Singapore for, on rail or delivered to steamers, the poor quality of Japanese coal at present being imported is $50 a ton; which would make it $52.50 in Kuala Lumpur. I will, however, take $50 a ton as a price which is equivalent to our pit-head price, although as a matter of fact, the freight on Rawang coal from pit-head to chief mining centres is less than it is from Singapore. The present normal price in Singapore of Indian coal is said to be $44 a ton, but as there is none to be had, it need not enter our calculations. The Singapore price for imported coal at the beginning of our financial year was a little above $40 a ton, so that a fair average price for the whole year would be $45 a ton. Our own average pit-head selling price for the whole of the year under review was $6.11 a ton, but if we only take the last two months of our financial year it was $7.95 a ton. The results of the extensive comparison tests by Osborne and Chapel in 1912 between Rawang coal and imported coal showed that the ratio was 5 to 7. I would here observe that with proper firing the real ratio is perhaps a trifle more favourable to Rawang coal than 5 to 7, for a small proportion of our output is now from the Great Seam, which is of higher calorific value than the Main Seam Coal, upon which latter it was that Osborne and Chappel made their tests. Moreover, on the other hand, the quality of imported coals is now not so good as it was before the war. Again, owing to the original lack of knowledge as to the best manner of burning Rawang coal, it is doubtful whether Messrs. Osborne and Chappel’s 1912 tests were fair to our fuel. I can safely say this because at a later date to these tests the Pengkalen Mine, which is under Osborne and Chappel's management, said that after a full trial they found it did not pay them to burn Rawang, and even at a second trial, when Malayan Collieries’ engineers were present, they still thought that Rawang coal was too poor to be of value to them. It was only after Malayan Collieries had begged for a third trial, at which the recommendation of the Malayan Collieries’ engineers should be carried out, and this had been granted, that we were able to prove to Messrs. Osborne and Chappel that, properly fired, it would pay to burn Rawang coal. However even at a ratio of 5 to 7, upon the present basis of imported coals Rawang fuel is worth $35.71 or 452 per cent of the average price at which we are now selling it, while for the past financial year it was worth an average $32.14 or 526 per cent of our average price for the whole of that year. We further find from Messrs. Osborne and Chappel’s 1912 report that at that date the F.M.S. Government Railway, owing to the big contract that it could place, was getting Indian coal at $7.13 a ton, and that upon tests made by them they estimated Rawang coal was worth to the railway $6.04 a ton. Yet after all these years of war and enhanced prices we are today selling one third of our output to the Government Railway at $5.50 a ton or 54 cents a ton cheaper than it was estimated to be worth to the Railway in the economical times of 1912. This price includes the Royalty of 25 cents a ton which we have to pay to the Government, so you may say that the Government is getting its coal at $5.25 a ton. If the Railway’s 60,000 tons it bought from us last year be calculated at the price ratio I have mentioned of $35.71, it is at present saving, by burning our coal and not having to buy it on the Singapore market, at the rate of $1,812,600 per annum. If you think that the Railway could purchase foreign coal at a cheaper rate than $50 a ton, knock off the odd $800,000 and say that we are only saving the Railway a million dollars a year. For the last year, against the cheaper price of imported coal has to be put the fact that we sold the railway part of their supplies at $5 a ton. Should, upon the ratio given for last year, the difference to all our customers be calculated, then the saving effected by Malayan Collieries for the country during that period works out at $4,200,000. On our present increased coal prices and on the present ratio the saving is still at the rate of $3,670,000 per annum. I would remind you that, deducting amortization which properly should be charged to revenue, but only deducting half the amount put to amortization as the other half is really depreciation upon the previous year’s working, the Company by exercising the greatest economy of management only made $338,000, that is to say but 8per cent of what it may claim to have saved the public, and that of this small per centage it had to re-sink half again into the mine. Compare the profits made last year upon imports by merchants, engineering firms and shop keepers, and also the profits being made by tin mines and smelters. Despite its scarcity, coal is about the one commodity used in the F.M.S. which is still sold at comparatively cheap rates. You may therefore, be well wondering what grounds any miner could possibly have had for complaining that Malayan Collieries was profiteering. Their plea was a somewhat disingenuous one, and they must have known that it was. When first we introduced our coal to the market, considerable prejudice existed against it, and this prejudice one or two mine managers were acute enough to turn to their advantage, and I am not blaming them for having done it. They knew we had got to get someone to burn our product in order to be able to inform prospective customers that such and such a big mine was using the coal, so after we had given them free coal, had run trials for them and had proved to them beyond doubt the value of Rawang for fuel purposes, they drove hard bargains with us, demanding contracts to be supplied with coal over fairly long periods at prices that left us practically no margins of profit. We had to accept their terms, for we had to get a start with our coal sales somewhere and somehow. Towards the end of the year under review these contracts, I am happy to say, have been expiring, and, there being no longer any need to advertise the value of the coal, the rates to these particular mines have been put up to a parity with those being charged to the general public - the price for “smalls” being increased from $3.50 to $8 per ton. It was, therefore, possible for the managers of those mines to complain that at one sweep we had raised the cost to them of their coal supplies by over 100 per cent, and to anyone not in possession of the facts their grumbles must have sounded most justifiable. I might here mention that, although the class of coal supplied to big mines is usually “smalls” on large stationary boilers the result obtainable by “smalls”, as one consumer has admitted to us in writing, is equal to that given by our round coal, so that no difference need be made in the 5 to 7 ratio. If I am not tiring you, it may perhaps be interesting to go more fully into the case of the particular mine that, we believe, complained the most strongly to the Government. Its average monthly consumption of Rawang “smalls” is 640 tons, for which it is now being charged $8 a ton at pit-head. On the basis of the calculation already mentioned, Japanese coal would cost it $35.71 f.o.r. Singapore, so that even without taking extra freight into consideration it is at present saving at the rate of $212, 800 per annum. For nine months of our last financial year we only charged $3.50 a ton, or on average $4.14 for the year, so that on last years average ratio it’s saving was $215,000. Another mine, which we understand complained, is still getting its “ smalls” from us at $5 a ton and is burning on average 850 tons a month. This mine, is therefore, effecting a saving at the rate of $313,200 per annum, while for the last year it saved $276,800. These two customers alone, the directors and shareholders of which are closely connected, are now saving through Malayan Collieries, just on their annual coal bill only, at the rate of $526,000 per annum, while they saved for last year $491, 800, as against Malayan Collieries’ total net profit from all customers for the year, less 2 and half per cent amortisation, of $338,000. In other words, we saved during the last year for these two mines one and three quarter times the total net profit derived by Malayan Collieries from a whole year’s business derived with all its customers, both Government and private, and shall be saving even more for them this year. These are the two mines which we have reason to think accused us of profiteering. If you will, to take another aspect of the relations between us, compare the small profit which is all that Malayan Collieries can have possibly made out of them during its last financial year, by selling coal to the one at $5 and to other at an average of $4.14 per ton, with the saving these two mines effected during the same period by dealing with Malayan Collieries, the figures become even more startling, and their accusations the more astonishingly inexplicable. Allow me here to parenthetically remark that taking into the calculation the 12 and half per cent which we are today recommending should be declared, the pioneer shareholders in Malayan Collieries will have received since the Company's formation, five years ago, an average return of 6.6 per cent per annum, while holders of vendor shares like myself will have obtained even less: an average return of 4 per cent per annum. I trust and believe that that there are fatter yields in store for us, if only in store in the distant future: we certainly deserve them. I will assure the Government that, if Malayan Collieries Ltd., make only part of the big profit it might, the major portion of such profit will be spent in so improving the mine without increase of capital that after the war it will be able against all foreign competition not only to retain the whole of the F.M.S. coal trade, but to capture a great part of the Colonial shipping requirements, and I ask whether such consummation would not be an eminently desirable one for the F.M.S. to achieve. To secure the shipping trade the coal would, of course, have to be briquetted, its present form being unsuitable for bunkering, but out of the profits I am suggesting we might make could be erected a large briquetting plant. However, all we are at present suggesting is to raise the price to all our customers, Government and public alike, by about $1 a ton, or, if the Government will not consent to the price of their own supplies being increased, and as the Railway has a five year contract it probably will not agree to such a proposal, to raise that to the remainder by a larger amount. We are not proposing this particular increase in order to make out of profits those improvements to our mine which I have just remarked it would be to the ultimate benefit of the country were we permitted to do, but merely in order to pay higher rates to our labour and so to increase our, at present, stationary output. Your Board is extremely anxious, however, not only to maintain but to increase the Company’s profits in order to meet the particularly heavy expenditure ahead of it during the coming year. Even without provisions for a briquetting, a distillation and an improved screening plant, and steel gantries to replace the present wooden heapsteads, the Company has a programme for 1918/1919 involving an outlay of some $400,000, and how this is to be met and a dividend of 12 and half per cent for the year still paid is a problem. We shall require two more turbine pumps and motors, two more electrical generators, two more Babcock boilers with chain grate stokers, two coal cutters, two coal conveyors, a shale crushing plant and hydraulic sand stowage pipes, gravel pumps and other plant for the Kundang sand stowage scheme, railway sidings at Kundang for the same, an additional locomotive, further cables, a brick making plant, and a log sawing machine. Besides these we have to extend the engine house and boiler house, build a new office a new store, another bungalow, and a police station. The “ main roads” underground will have to be bricked throughout, which work must be put in hand at once, and as for this we can only use high class machine made bricks, besides the brick-making machinery to which I have already made reference, we shall further need to erect a new coal-fired brick kiln. The year following we shall require deal with the question of a briquetting and perhaps a distillation plant. So you see that, whatever be the amount of profits made, I can only hold out little hope of the Company paying more than about 12 and half per cent per annum for some years to come, and it may quite probably be an even lesser dividend than this. Before sitting down, I should like to briefly mention the great loss this Company has sustained by the sudden death at a comparatively early age of Mr. F. J. B. Dykes. Mr. Dykes was the staunchest supporter of and the most enthusiastic believer in the Company, amongst all its shareholders. When the former London owners, to whom the Government had given the concession, decided to get rid of it and offered it to several big London mining firms, including that of John Taylor and Sons, all of whom turned it down, and when Mr. Dykes wrote to the speaker advising him to come to London and to negotiate for the purchase, Mr. Dykes I am positive had but one single actuating motive: to benefit if he could, by opening up the coalfield, the country where he had spent so many years and in which he took such a disinterested interest. He could not bear to think that a deposit which he believed to be of such potential value for the future welfare of the F.M.S. should be suffered to lie in undeveloped neglect. I shall always consider it one of greatest compliments I have had paid to me that Mr. Dykes, when looking for someone to develop the place he had such an intense but single faith in, turned in his need to myself. I may say that Mr. Dykes never had a thought of making a penny out of the transactions whereby I acquired an option over what is now your property. I also wish to take the opportunity afforded by today’s meeting of expressing the Company’s debt to the Senior Warden of mines Mr. Eyre-Kenny, for the assistance and advice he has rendered us throughout the year, while to the acting General Manager of the Railways, Mr. Fox, and to his staff, particularly to that of the Construction Department, I should like to express the Company's gratitude for the help they have continued where possible to render to us in the matter of the construction of sidings, the loan of rails and many other ways. Mr. McCall and his staff on the mine have worked throughout a strenuous and trying year with the same untiring energy and devotion to which I last year made allusion, and I sincerely trust that shareholders will presently pass to Mr. McCall, and also to his assistants, a hearty vote of thanks, and will to accord them the usual bonus in appreciation of the good services they have rendered. I now beg formally to move that the report of the directors produced together with the statement of the Company’s accounts as at June 30th, 1918, duly edited, be now received, approved and adopted, which motion I shall ask Mr. Hengeller to second; but before putting it to the meeting, I shall first endeavor to answer to the best of my ability any questions that shareholders may like to put. There being no questions, Mr. A.A. Hengeller seconded the Chairman’s motion to adopt the report and accounts, which was carried. The Chairman then moved the payment of a dividend of 12 and half per cent, upon the share capital of the Company, the placing of a sum of $150,000 to a general reserve, and the caring forward of the balance to next year’s account, which was seconded by Mr. A. Grant Mackie and carried. The sum of $5,000 was voted to the directors in remuneration of their services for the past year. Mr. Grant Mackie and Mr. J. A. Russell were re-elected to seats on the board. Messrs Evatt and Co. were re-elected auditors for the ensuing year at a fee to be fixed by the Directors. A vote of thanks was passed to Mr. McCall and his staff at the mine for their services during the past year, and a bonus of one month’s salary granted to the mine staff as mark of the Company’s appreciation. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to the Chairman and Directors.