A LONDON VIEW OF MOUNT MORGAN PROSPECTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2751, 1 March 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

A LONDON VIEW OF MOUNT MORGAN PROSPECTS.

The Mount Morgan gold mine, or, to speak more strictly, quarry, has for some yetrs been worked by a Queensland company, whose capital is 1,000,000 shares of £1 each, upon which, we believe, 17s 6 ) is supposed to have been paid, or is credited as paid, which comes to the sam .' thing, In ISSS these shares we're about 30< each ; in 1886 the price reached from £4 to £5 ; in 1888 business was done as hi.'h as £17 a share, or at the rate of £17,000,000 for the whole property ; while at the present moment the ruling price is about £9 each—a little more than one-half the value some 18 .months ago. Ad examination of the Mount Morgan share registrar exposes a very peculiar state of affairs. Out of 1,000,000 shares 800,000 are held by seven or eight men. There stands at the head! of the list Mr Thomas liall. manager of the Queensland National Bank at Rockhampton, from which he still draws a salary of about £1200 a year, with some 240,000 Mount Morgan shares at his own property, or on paper the proud possessor of £2,600,000. How j small must Mr Henderson, of drapery and Oceana fame, feel compared to this millionaire bank manager ! Mr Walter Hall, Mr We«ley Hall, the Colonial Treasurer (Mr W. Pattison), Mr Ferguson and Mr D'Arcy are among the large holders, ranging from 60,000 shares upwards. Now, although the concen tration of shares in a few hands is perhaps a source of strength to the company, as long as the few do not want to sell, it has its drawbacks, especially in an unsatisfactory market. We do not think We are exaggerating if we say that not one of the geutiemen whose, names we have mentioned could realise any considerable' portion of their papi-r fortunes without exhausting the buvern. What then, were, or are the available remedies? r In only one or two waycould matters be improved ; either Mount Morg-in mi-jilt be brought out in London as an Engli-li company, or the shares might gradually bo introduced on the Stock Ex :hunge. Even for the Kxploiation Company it would be a big undertaking to launch a mine whose capital could not be less than £9 000 000 and must m»4 probably be .£10.000.000 or £11.000,000. to get two thirds of it subscribed for a Stock Exchange quotation would be -i still more'difficult task. Hence wo believe that we are revealing no when we say that it has been determined to open a London office and an English register, so th it in a short titna we may expeot to see the dealings in Moun' Morgans as regularly quoted in the papers as in Tintos, or British Broken Hill. Of late the anxiety of the Queens landers to inform the English public month by month of the dividends distributed has so self evident, that a fresh demand on British capital in some shape or other is clearly inevitable. Thi-i year the mine has paid about £1,100,000 in dividends, or 22a a share, and by an increase of machimry and plant, we have no doubt that this result can be improved upon. But we would warnbuyersof two things—one, that the price of their shares must' for a long time remain at the mercy of a few large holders ; and again, that while we consider the investment pretty sure to yield 1,0 or 12 per cent for a time, it is an open question whether or not the deposit contains enough gold to return from £15,000,000 to £20 000,000 profit— about'the sum required for capital and interest to the investor at £10 a sharebefore it becomes exhausted,—City Leader.