Page 2 Advertisements Column 5

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 49, 23 August 1894, Page 2

The N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, litd. : Fair Play (London), of July 13tb, has an interesting article on the position and prospects of the reconstructed^ N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency Compa&y: — " The colony has been hard hit, and while it was obvious that the shareholders in the defunct Company would naturally welcome any scheme whiph promised to improve their position,£reat doubts existed as to their ability— at any rate of the , colonial shareholders-^-to give effect to their desires by cominehsurate subscriptions. These doubts have been effectuaUy removed. The Company expected thesubscriptionß to amount to £500,000. of which it was anticipated that £350,000 would come from British shareholders, and £150,000 from the colony. Tho annual subscriptions, are £620,000— viz,, £870,000 vfrom this side, and £250,000 from th& colony. This result, especiaUy as regains; the colonial subscriptions,.; has come aa ; 'a surprise, and is probably due in no small degree to the confidence placed in ihe sagacity of Baron Schroder and the new directors. That confidence can scarcely be regarded as unfounded. While the Barings, Muriettas, the Bank of England, and a host of minor fry, were rushing down the fatal incline of Argentine finance, some to perish in the waters and others to escape damaged in means and reputation, the Baron stood aloof. On the other hand, he took up the Estates Company of the Bank of New Zealand, and now the New Zealand Government, by virtue of its recent arrangement with the Bank, practically guarantees^ thafc transaction, and adds, for what it may be worth, the Government guarantee 'to the existing securities. So far, then, as the subscriptions are concerned; the reconstruction scheme promises well. It starts with a subscribed capital of, roughly, £620,000, which will no doubt be paid up. It has power to raise £250,000, and will thus have the command of £800,000 to £900,000 iv the most liquid of assets — hard cash. It will be the business of the new Company, which has no obligations of any kind to meet, to keep these assets liquid, and religiously avoid following the example of its predecessors by nob locking up its funds in plain and fancy investments, which, whatever general merits they may possess, were highly unprofitable in the working, and rigidly inconvertible in the end. The time, no doubt, will come when the financing of estates may once more be profitably indulged in in the colonies, but for this Company at least, that time has not yet arrived, and its chief efforts for. the present will undoubtedly be confined to . dealing to the best advantage with the securities it now holds. It has, in fact, been called upon to take over a wreck and make the best of it. Another year or two will clear the air, and show how where assistance may most advan* and tageously be given, either in starting new or assisting established enterprises." The action of Mr Justice Vaughan Williams in urging the prosecution of the old directors, to compel them- to make refund, is condemned by Fair Play as likely to prove embarrassing to the new company, the funds of which "should not be expended in furtherance of an object which is rather suggestive of animus against the old Board than of sympathy with the shareholders, who certainly stand to gain nothing by the transaction." If fraud was com- , mitted, the Public Prosecutor should take it up. "It certainly is not in the interests of the new company, nor of colonial credit that muddy water should be stirred up unnecessarily, and that will be the only effect of persistence in - Mr Justice Vaughan Wilh'anis'- present line of action."

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