A SIGN OF IMPROVING TJRADE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1689, 17 October 1887, Page 3

A SIGN OF IMPROVING TJRADE

— — — ■ — . — Moßt of the Eogiish railway oompanlea have n w deolared their dividends for the half year, and very satisfactory dividends they are. The days wliea tbe common stocks of our great companies gave phen-.menally large returns to (he iaveatoi have vanished, perhaps fo? ever, but bo, equally, have Ihe days when a touoh of bad times made dividends disappear or diminish. The half-year just ended oould not be called a strikingly proeperous on« for the great majority of the companies. Trade was better, perhaps, m the earlier months of the period than it is i o-day, but it was by no meanß brilliant! Nor were other conditions favorable to the companies m any large degree. They bad to contend with a load and general demand for reduced charges upon their goods traffic, and their mineral business was, apart from the coal supply of London and other great centres of population, far from progressive. None the leßß Is it true that the companies have done remarkably well for their shareholders. Alone among the Important lines, the Great Northern and South Eastern pay no more than they did this time last year. The Midland Company, which baa recently B3emed to suffer rather severely from bad trade and competition, has managed to give its shareholders a quarter per cent moro than It did twelve months ago ; and the Lancashire and Yorkshire, till lately typically ■ retrogressive, psyo three-quarters psr cent ; more. Even the Chatham and Dover Company, whose finances have been heavily encumbered by experiments In the oreation of terminal faollltle?, has so far manifested elasticity as to be able to pay 1£ per cent, instead of 1 per cent per aunum, on its old Arbitration Preference Stocks. It must, however, be conceded that tbe so-called ' heavy ' lines — tha companies whose traffic has hitherto been preponderatingly m goods and mineralshave held their own beak during the halfyear. They have all done well, for even the 'no increase ' of the Great Northern is a proof of remarkable elasticity, beoaose the estimated reoeipts of the company were less than m tbe corresponding halfyear, and tbe capital to be paid upon exceptlonilly large.