SUGAR COMPANY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10465, 1 November 1911, Page 5

SUGAR COMPANY

CABLE NEWS

United Press Association—-By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

HALF-YEARLY MEEfINB

SATISFACTORY REPORT.

(Received Last Night, 9.45 o'clock.)

SyDNEY, October 31

At the half-yearly meeting of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, the report showed the profits in tralia were £115,829, and in Fiji and New Zealand £95,€00. To this is added a balance of £77,613, making £288,443 available for the half year. A dividend of ten per centum was declared, absorbing - £150,000, and a bonus of two shillings per share, leaving £123,443 to be carried forward. The report stated that the. heavy rains and floods in Queensland and Fiji, followed, by /exceedingly dry weather, had done much damage to the (growing sugar' crops. The partial faihire of the beet sugar crops in Europe had caused an advance in prices, but there was no reason to suppose that a. permanent advance had been, or would be established.

The chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, referred to the appointment of the sugar SCommission. The .Company would in due course state its views on the situation. In order to silence those who attacked it, the Company would be compelled to set fortlii the position more fully, than it had yet done. That it should be compelled to do so was a. grave wrong; but 'Parliament had now lost sight altogether of the liberties of the community. The action of the Commissioners in refusing to allow the Company to be represented iby counsel could not .be defended -by either precedent or justice. The Queensland strike caused a small loss in connection with the mills, .but they were able to keep running. The production while the strike lasted was a little below normal. "In the settlement, e'ffected, the Company had no part ; but nothing could .be .gained by discussing ,• the. dfeiails how. Notwithstanding th? rise, in prices, the Company in* Jin© sold to manufacturers supplies for the year at a. rate which gives it to them, after the sugar duty is paid, below what the competitors in Britain have to pay in bond.