THE AUSTRALIAN: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS AND COMPANY DIVIDENDS.
The penalties will be enforced ; the contract perhaps voided ; and the Company's books will tell a painful tale. To whom P—To the shareholders. Their neglect is a counterpart of that of the Go- vernment: as bureaus are too apt only to look at tender and terms, so persons with money to buy shares are apt to look too exclusively to prospectus and names. Government gives the contract ; share- holders embark the money; some persons, called directors and officers, do as they please until the day of reckoning. Neither the Govern- ment nor the shareholders busy themselves about the work to be done : only scraps of parchment and paper, penalties and payments, are present to the mind ; the actual duty beyond remaining a mat- ter of indifference. In the present case, the Government will in- flict the penalties, which will fall mainly on the shareholders; and both may learn that it may be better in such cases not to look only to names or clauses, or any other forms, but to look for themselves a little after their own business. If they had done that, Govern- ment would not have found the Australian mail carried thrice into Plymouth, nor would the shareholders have discovered that their maiden dividend is the condemned ship.
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