GREAT SHIPPING CONCERN.

Patea Mail, 25 January 1881, Page 3

GREAT SHIPPING CONCERN.

The fortieth annual report of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company has been issued. It states that the net profit of the past year, including £4308 brought forward, was £149,862, out of which an interim dividend of 2 per cent, has been paid. A further dividend of 3 per cent, is now proposed, which will make 5 per cent, for the year, and leave £4862 to be carried forward. Particulars are given of no fewer than eight new steamers which are being built for the company with all the latest improvements. A number of the old ships are also being repaired and adapted to modern requirements, and the directors take credit to themselves, that amid all these costly additions and changes, they have been able to pay off almost the whole debenture debt. The receipts of the company were £592,768 for passengers, and £975,286 for freights daring the year. Mail contracts brought in £484,764. There are, however, several adjustments to make, such as £57,430 for loss by exchange, and £19,026 credit balance of interest and discount account, so that the total actual income was £2,014,314. The total outgoings of the year amounted to about £1,869,000. So enormous an outlay incurred to earn a net revenue of but £145,000 or so, appears to justify the complaints of the directors about the keen character of the competition to which the company is subjected, and the consequent lowness of the freights. Revenue has fallen off, they say, not less than £240,000 in the last two years, but in the year now closed the receipts were better by £IBO,OOO than in the previous year.