Financial and Investment Notes RtNKING IN SCOTLAND.

LAST week I commented upon the satisfactory report and balance-sheet of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and during the past week the Commercial Bank of Scotland has also published its Report. The statement is a good one as regards profits, which show an increase of about £3,000, and the Bank main- tains its usual dividend of 16 per cent. on the " A " shares

and 10 per cent. on the " shares. This year, however, there are larger allocations to special Funds, £10,000 being

(Continued on page 970.) Financial and Investment Notes (Continued from page 988.) placed to the Widows' and Orphans' Fund. Scheme of the Bank and £5,000 to the Fund for Staff Insurance. In addition, 150,000 is again placed to the Reserve, £50,000 to Premise and £30,000 to Staff Funds. After making these generous allocations and distributing the dividends, the balance carried forward is £65,230 against 182,122 a year ago. The balance- sheet shows that Deposits, which have risen during the year by about £1,300,000, now stand at £42,017,000, being the highest point on record. Cash and other liquid assets have also risen, and as against the total of Deposits just mentioned, Cash and Money at Call and British Government Securities figure for something like 185,700,000, thus indicating a thoroughly liquid position. The annual meeting takes place in Edinburgh on December 10th.

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BREWERIES. AND TAXATION.

At the recent annual meeting of Mitchells and Butlers, Limited, the Birmingham brewers, the Chairman, Sir William Waters Butler, was again able to refute the accusation some- times made by British barley growers that the breiVers have not honoured the arrangement to purchase as much home- grown barley as possible. The facts are, of course, that members of the Brewers' Society pledged themselves to purchase at least 7,500,000 cwt. of British barley annually, provided it was of malting standard, and to increase this quantity as the 'output of beer increased. Sir William said, however, that the difficulty was to obtain barley of the required standard. This season's, he said, is not equal in quality to that of the past two years. A good quality malting barley was scarce, and they had been driven to buy high- quality foreign barley at a higher price than English. Sir William rightly maintained that it was no use farmers pressing for a higher import duty on a material the brewer was bound to purchase to produce good quality beer when the English harvest was bad. Sir William also drew attention to the difficulties confronting the licence-holder in these days of high duties and taxes, and he complained of the growth of the bogus club, and pointed out that the increased sales of Empire wines, admitted at low preferential duty, and displacing drinks of lower alcoholic strength, such as beer and cider, would tend to increase drunkenness. In spite, however, of high taxation, the Chairman of Mitchells and Butlers had a good annual report to place before the shareholders.

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CIIARTERHOUSE INVESTMENT NEW CAPITAL Charterhouse Investment Trust, which is a well-known issuing house, has published a very good Report for the past year, the net profit having risen from £119,912 to £192,698. The actual distribution to shareholders, namely, 10 per cent. on the Ordinary stock, is the same as a year ago, but it is in the form of a straight dividend of 10 per cent., whereas a year ago it was in the form of a 7/ per cent. dividend and a 21 per cent. bonus, so that the change may be regarded as indicating a belief on the part of the directors in the main- tenance of the dividend. Moreover, the strength of the balance-sheet has been increased by an addition to the Special Reserve of £19,270 and £50,000 to the General Reserve.

The Charterhouse Trust has now been in existence for about eleven years and, as an issuing house, it has during that period witnessed times both of general prosperity and general depression in the country. It speaks well, therefore, for the management that over the period of its existence dividends have been paid in-each year averaging 81 per cent. over the whole period. It now has an accumulated Reserve of over £300,000. The directors accompany the repoqwith proposals for increasing the capital from 11,000,000 to £1,500,000 by the creation of 500,000 Ordinary shares of £1 each to be offered at the price of 25s. per share (as against 35s. for the existing £1 unit stock) in the proportion of one Ordinary share for every £2 of Ordinary stock held. When the new issue has been sanctioned and made, it is the inten- tion to divide the resulting £1,500,000 Ordinary stock into £750,000 41 per cent. Cumulative Preference Stock (repayable at 22s. per £1 unit in a winding up) and £750,000 of Ordinary stock. The scheme seems to be a desirable one in the interests of shareholders, and the 44 per cent. Preference stock might be regarded as a fairly sound investment even at some fractional premium.

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WANRIE COLLIERY.

At the recent General Meeting of Wankie Colliery Company, the Chairman and Managing Director, Sir, Edmund Davis? stated that the total cost of production for the past year (Continued on page 972.)

Financial and Investment Notes

(Continued from page 970.)

amounted to £167,159, on a saleable output of 617,497 tom, compared with £176,566 on a " saleable output of 610,891 tons for the previous year. In the current year, Sir Edmund said the Directors were looking to larger sales of coal clue in the first instance to the additional output of copper in Northern Rhodesia, and secondly. to the extension in Southern Rhodesia of supplies of electricity from municipal power stations to mines in their vicinity, which previously obtained their power requirements from wood fuel or oil. Dealing with the current year's outlook, Sir Edmund anticipated an increase in copper production which, he said, would mean larger sales of coal to the mines and to the railways, followed by an increase in the Company's profits.

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BARLEY PROBLEMS.

Almost, it alight be said, by way of complement to the improvement of Mitchells and Butlers to which I have already referred, Mr. H. Nutcombe Hume, the Chairman of Associated British Monsters, Limited, in which business the chief itlw material employed is barley, at the annual meeting last Monday dealt at some length with the problem attaching to the British barley industry. Mr. Hume joined with the Chairman of Mitchells and Butlers in taking a serious view of the poor harvest in this country last summer owing to excessive rains, pointing out that at least 25 per cent. of the home crop was unfit for malting at all, and a further 15 per cent. was unsuitable for brewing malt. He also showed that the shortage of barley suitable for brewing had put the price of the Californian product up £1 to 42s. 6d. per quarter c.i.f. Farmers, he said, were given the equivalent of a protective duty of £1 per quarter, but the average price obtained by British farmers for their product was only 1s. 10d. per quarter higher, and he considered that English barley today offered the best value in the world. A good Report of the Company was submitted to the meeting and the proposed increase in the Company's capital was approved.

A. W. K.