PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2155, 2 April 1908, Page 1

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

THE MANAWATU RAILWAY. Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 1. At- the annual meeting of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company to-day, the Chairman stated that the year just closed was a record one for the volume of business done, and also for the greatest individual increase in any one year. He doubted if the most sanguine of the directors had hoped last year that the ensuing twelve months’ operations would result in an increase of revenue amounting to £15,913. In the past two years the aggregate increase totalled £28,099, or approximately 16 per cent, of the whole revenue for the year. The numbers of passengers carried during the year increased from 510,506 for 1907" to 601,250, and accounts, with parcel's, for £9355 of the improvement- in revenue. Goods carried during the year amounted to 134,779 tons, or 15,719 more than the last year, and for £6168 of the, increased revenue. The expenditure increased by £11,214, and amounts to 60.2 per cent, of the receipts. The sum available- for dividends is £44,941. It is proposed to pay out of this a dividend of 4 per cent., making, with the interim didividend of 3 pci' cent,, already paid, 7 per cent., for the year, and to carry forward a balance of £33:141. Referring to the matter of taking over the line the Chairman said: “At the present junction we can only await events, but we are quite prepared to facilitate and assisib the Government in the-acquisition of the line in anyway consistent with due regard to the interests of the shareholders’' Messrs. J. 11. Blair and H. Strange were reelected to the directorate.