By its means the existing Eight per Cent. Preference Stock will doubtless be placed at par in the market before the sailing of the ship next year.
The Directors are, however, compelled to offer an inducement to those who are willing to come in and assist to place in that position the Company’s, at present, sinking property.
Acting under advice, and believing in the very large profits that undoubtedly await this Company when successful, they desire to offer a first dividend of 12 per cent., with participation in profits, after 8 per cent. has been paid upon the existing preference shares and 4 per cent. upon the old capital, to those who consent to supply the requisite funds.
The Shareholders will have the opportunity of subscribing for this new Preferential Stock, which is issued solely to protect their property. Those proprietors who subscribe to it are manifestly not injured in any way, as they absorb the whole profits of the Company. Those who do not subscribe pay in effect a small premium to the subscriber who comes forward to help them. It is considered by the Board that this is infinitely preferable to winding-up the Company, whereby the Shareholders would have the mortification of seeing the whole of their property sacrificed, and of seeing an undertaking pass out of their hands, when on the very eve of success, upon which so much attention has been bestowed, and so much experience gained by the expenditure of their own funds.
Such a sacrifice is totally unnecessary, for it can be ascertained by any one who will take the trouble to make a small calculation, that if each of the two proposed Cables can be worked at the very low rate of only five words per minute upon each Cable for sixteen hours a day at five shillings per word, which is believed to be a much lower rate than the pressure of business would admit of in the first instance, the traffic, after paying the dividend charges of 12, 8, and 4 per cent. respectively, amounting together to 144,000l. upon the capital comprised in those different stocks, and after adding thereto the very large sum of 50,000l. a-year for working expenses, would leave an enormous balance for paying further dividends or bonuses on the Company’s total capital, both ordinary and preferential.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| in which occurs the following passages=> in which occur the following passages {pg 7} |
| eight-eight in the United States=> eighty-eight in the United States {pg 11} |
| assumed tempeatures=> assumed temperatures {pg} |
| there, standing blank and mute=> There, standing blank and mute {pg 94} |
| S. CANNNNG.=> S. CANNNG. {pg 111} |
| Kuper=> Küper |
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “From Cape Freels, Newfoundland, to Erris Head, Ireland, the distance is 1,611 miles; from Cape Charles, or Cape St. Lewis, Labrador, to ditto, the distance is 1,601 miles.”
[2] Short-lived as was the former Cable, it had survived long enough to prove its value in a financial point of view. Amongst 400 messages which it had transmitted, was one that had been dispatched from London in the morning and reached Halifax the same day, directing “that the 62nd Regiment were not to return to England.” This timely warning saved the country an expenditure of 50,000l.