Sir Bernard's Battle
BY CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS
To one who is more familiar with literature than with company meetings, it was impossible not to have The Forsyte Saga in mind as one made one's way down a crowded staircase to the BSA meeting at Grosvenor House. A man fight- ing for his life, whatever the rights of his case, must inevitably attract sympathy. Yet what a curious business is the reality, as opposed to the theory, of the capitalist system! Reality is further removed from theory in business even than in politics. In theory the directors are of course, here as elsewhere, the servants of 'your company.' In fact, as Mr. Sangster told us, in this company, not unlike other companies, at the previous general meeting seven shareholders had turned up. Many of the shareholders of BSA, like other members of the public, must have read of the doings of Sir Bernard and Lady Docker in the press, but it never occurred to them that they had any responsibility to do anything about it until the present row blew up.
Some hundreds of BSA shareholders crowded into Grosvenor House. Whether their motive was a limited anxiety about their own investments or whether they were merely taking advantage of a happy accident to be in on a story of human interest, who shall say? There was scattered about the hall a small body of vociferous supporters of Sir Bernard, ready to shout out abuse of Mr. Sangster and ask what he had done with the 'two millions,' to hiss Sir Bernard's cousin who was taking sides against him or to ask impertinent ques- * HOUSES To LET: THE FUTURE OF RENT CONTROL. By Geoffrey Howe and Colin Jones. (Conservative Political Centre, 2s. 6d.) tions about Sir Patrick Hannon's age. But it was noticeable that during Sir Bernard's speech the applause came only from a few hands. The majority was silent.
It was obvious enough from the start that Sir Bernard, a less happy Jolyon, was on the defensive. There were two bull points against him. The first was that the hard-headed shareholder, with no predilections one way or the other, could not but reflect that, after all that had happened. BSA, if it now reversed its decision, would be the laughing-stock of the world, and this, whether an act of justice or not, would not be to the advantage of his shares. And what would be the effect on labour and wage restraint in general if after all this ballyhoo Sir Bernard should be returned to power? The second bull point against Sir Bernard was that the ordinary shareholder could not possibly have an opinion which of various gentlemen unknown to him was most suitable to be a director. It was obvious when the directors were asked to stand up that no one in the body of the hall knew any of them. The natural policy then was to back the board, which did at any rate know what the candidates looked like.
On the other hand Sir Bernard had one, if only one, bull point on his side. It was that all the spectacular accusations against him were accusations of misdeeds committed before this year, and that on December 5, 1955, the board had unanimously re-elected him. He had an effective quotation from a speech of Sir Patrick Hannon in praise of his activities some time before that meeting. One could well see how such an answer might itself have been answered, had it been pressed home—how the directors might have argued with plausibility that they had felt mounting disquiet at Sir Bernard's 'goings- on' but had loyally kept quiet so long as they could, and so on. How such an interchange would have gone one cannot say, because Sir Bernard did not show the debating skill to force the issue on to ground favourable to himself. He was, as he himself said, 'no orator.' Indeed he must in fact be the worst speaker in Europe. Fumbling on interminably about details which no one could possibly follow, losing his place among his papers, uncertain what document to read and what not to read, putting on the wrong glasses and taking them off again, he maundered on for an hour and proved himself his own worst friend. He left Mr. Sangster with no case to answer— not, perhaps, because there was not a case, but because he did not make it. Lady Docker, as a penitent pleading for pity, was interesting rather than effective.
I do not know for what exact reasons individual share- holders gave their votes nor how far they understood what had been going on. The interesting point is that the share- holder whose intervention obviously was effective was the Prudential. It was the Prudential which became restive at the financial condition of the company, the Prudential that Mr. Sangster and Mr. Rowe spoke to; which interviewed sir Bernard and which asked for an investigation—the Prudential which proved itself the master and the victor. Sir Bernard's answer that he could not properly give the Prudential informa- tion that he did not give to other shareholders was not very effective, since the accusation against him was that he ought to have given all shareholders much more information. I do not say that it is wrong that the Prudential should have been shown to have this dominating power, but it is interesting and important. The whole story shows how under modern capitalism the individual shareholder is no longer of great importance—usually not asserting himself at all; when he is invited for an opinion, not sufficiently confident in his know- ledge to do more than follow a lead—but that the power of the finance companies over the producing firms is immense.
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