III - THE MASTER'S REPORT (1881)

Summary

1. My Dear Friends,—It is an essential condition of the legal status of Companies, acknowledged by the Board of Trade, that a meeting of the members (or at least a proportion of their total number) should be summoned annually, and some account of the year's proceedings laid before them.

I issue the summons as I am required to do, but the Board of Trade assuredly never contemplated, in framing this law, the operation of a society consisting, as ours does at present, chiefly of—I hope you will not think the word disrespectful—poor individuals, who are giving out of very small incomes all they can spare to the Company's work, are deriving no benefit from that work themselves, and would be seriously inconvenienced by the necessity of travelling to hear a letter read in London or Birmingham, which they could have read as easily at home.

Neither did the Board of Trade contemplate in its law the existence of a company designed to extend its operations over the continent of Europe, and number its members, ultimately, by myriads,—whose debates could only be carried on by representatives, for whose selection there is as yet no provision. How poor and few we are as yet; how rich and numerous we may one day become, I am not minded to-day either to confess or anticipate;—but whatever action the Board of Trade may take in the matter, I conceive that this summons of annual meeting may for the present rest a formality.