COMPANY MEETING

BRITISH INSULATED CABLES, LIMITED

SATISFACTORY RESULTS IN A YEAR OF FALLING PRICES INCREASED EFFICIENCY SIR ALEXANDER ROGER ON THE SITUATION

THE forty-third ordinary general meeting of British Insulated Cables, Limited, was held on March 28th at Exchange Station Buildings, Liverpool.

Sir Alexander Roger, chairman, said: Ladies and gentlemen, you will observe that the profit on trading (after contingent reserves adjustment), dividends, &c., amounts to £807,87.4, a decrease of only £13,484 from the record figure achieved last year. Having regard to the international crises which occurred in 1938 and to the fact that we are not a company with any large direct interest in armament work, I am sure that you will consider, as your directors do, that the results for 1938 are very satisfactory.

Out of this balance your directors propose to transfer £1 oo,000 to reserve account and to pay a final dividend of to per cent. (less tax) on the Ordinary stock, making, with the interim already paid, a total dividend, for the thirteenth year in succession, of 15 per cent. (less tax). In addition, your directors are pleased to recom- mend that for the fourth successive year a cash bonus of 5 per cent. (less tax) be again distributed on the Ordinary stock.

Turning now to the balance sheet and dealing first with the liabilities side, you see that capital and Debenture stock remain unchanged. Under current liabilities and provisions the only change of consequence is the increase of £119,950 in general credi- tors and contingent reserves now amounting to £1,451,100.

Turning now to the assets side of the balance sheet, the item of fixed assets at £1,930,429 shows a net increase over the year of L114,376, the actual additions to our buildings, plant, &c., during 1938 of £270,778 (the second highest annual expenditure ever made by your company on these assets) being offset by the depreciation applied for this year of £156,402.

The past year's trading showed a contraction in sales and in the volume of output compared with the previous year, in which you will remember the highest records for the company were estab- lished.

You will remember that last year I referred to the contract with a value of over £1,000,000 which we were fortunate in securing horn the L.N.E.R. Under it we are responsible for the overhead and track equipment from Manchester to Sheffield and also in the neighbourhood of Liverpool Street, London. It is the most impor- tant railway electrification contract of the kind yet carried out in this country, and you will be interested to know that the pre- liminary work of arranging layouts for the many tunnels, bridges, and .complicated sidings involved is proceeding normally and we arc lust about to commence delivery of material to the sites.

EXPORT TRADE

I should like also to refer to general export business, which is not only of importance to the B.I. itself, but also to its subsidiary and associated concerns. Circumstances affecting world business are changing with breathless rapidity, and it is dangerous to express views based on facts as we know them to-day in case entirely fresh considerations arise to-morrow which may have the effect of nulli- fying everything that precedes it.

The wants of the world are still far from being satisfied, whereas one would have thought the opinion was held in various places abroad that world business had reached a static position and it had to be indecently scrambled for. There is no limit to the ex- pansion of business in a peaceful world and it is tragic when one sees the possibility of peaceful prosperity endangered by the rulers of Germany. One is driven to the conclusion that monopoly and domination is their aim, whereas the view of the business men in this country, widely and generally held, is that there is sufficient business in the world both for England and for Germany, and, indeed, enough for all the great industrial nations.

It has hitherto always been open to German industry to trade in the British Empire. It is true that the Ottawa Agreement gave us a natural position of preference, but this was never raised to the point where foreign manufacture was excluded from Empire 0 .rkets. This fair treatment of Germany hitherto gave us the right to say to German competition that while we recognised their Pr-ponderant position in many parts of Europe we could not admit tI,,t their position would ever become one of monopoly to our co;:iplete exclusion.

.The only sure road to peace is by way of universal trade on a fists which enables the easy and rapid passage of goods between all countries.

_With regard to Empire business it is important to note that one t21 Ine direct results of German policy is the determination of our D. °minions and Colonies to pursue a policy of developing secon- ciarY industries for the purpose of making available to themselves

goods manufactured within their own borders and with little regard to the large purchases which this country makes from them.

We would naturally prefer to continue to manufacture here and export to the Dominions and thus assist in maintaining exports so necessary to this country, but we have been and are being gradually forced to follow the alternative and take up interests in manufac- turing concerns similar to our own in various of the Dominions. We do not pursue this policy alone. These interests have been acquired jointly with other members of the Cable Makers' Asso- ciation, which comprises the bulk of the cable industry in Great Britain.

As a contrast to this tendency it is pleasant to be able to record that we have been recently successful in securing an important contract for super-tension cables from the Johannesburg Munici- pality, having a value of about L200,000.

You will no doubt want to know what I have to say about the future, and I can give the answer in a word. At the moment we have a satisfactory balance of orders in hand, and the indications up to a week or two ago were that lye could expect a normal year. Providing no international catastrophe intervenes your board think that our expectations will be realised.

The report and accounts were unanimously adopted.