Company C

“ The English East India Company, for instance, which was founded in 1600 as a regulated company, was made over into a joint stock company by degrees, and could not be regarded as permanently established on this basis for over fifty years. Generations of bitter experience were required to teach people the possible dangers as well as the possible benefits of this form of association. ”

“ Rise of Great Corporations.%—That mechanical progress so astonishing should powerfully affect the business and industrial world was inevitable. Trades, occupations, industries of all sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and corporations took the place of individuals and small companies. In place of the forty little telegraph companies of 1856, there was the great Western Union Company. In place of many petty railroads, there were a few trunk lines. ”

“ George’s Company is now distinctly in existence; formed of about twenty accepted Companions, to whose number I am daily adding, and to whom the entire property of the Company legally belongs, and who have the right at any moment to depose the Master, and dispose of the property in any manner they may think fit. Unless I believed myself capable of choosing persons for Companions who might be safely entrusted with this power I should not have endeavoured to form the society at all. ”

“ In the short space of four years a crowd of companies, every one of which confidently held out to subscribers the hope of immense gains, sprang into existence—the Insurance Company, the Paper Company, the Lutestring Company, the Pearl Fishery Company, the Glass Bottle Company, the Alum Company, the Blythe Coal Company, the Swordblade Company. ”

“ George’s Company other than a voluntary association of persons which the law will not recognize as a corporation.
“The Companions of St. George will be capable of holding land, but not as the St. George’s Company,—that is, not as a corporation. Land must be held by or for them as individuals. You may have a piece of land conveyed to, say two hundred Companions; naming each of them; but for the sake of convenience [233] you would have it conveyed to two or three who should hold it upon trust for the Companions generally. ”

“ That two companies of Ringers be appointed—each company being equal in number to the Bells—the one company being the regular Ringers, performing and being responsible for all regular duty, and enjoying all emoluments—the other being a supplemental company, out of which any vacancy which may occur in the first company shall be filled up, and any member of which may be employed by any member of the first company to supply his place during any necessary absence. ”

“ There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in America a Corporation. I went over several of these; such as a woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined them in every part; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary everyday proceedings. I may add that I am well acquainted with our manufacturing towns in England, and have visited many mills in Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner. ”

“ With this I then propose to combine the National Dairy Products Consolidation, the Standard Cereal Company, the Amalgamated Metals Constructive Company, the Union Fuel, American Textiles, the United States Supplies, and the stupendous financial interests swayed by the banks tributary to the Majestic Trust Company. I propose to weld these gigantic concerns into one corporation, which shall be the mightiest organisation the world has ever known. Beginning with the control of transportation, it will control all food, all apparel, all construction materials, all fuel. ”

“ Most of those who were for a New Company thought that the New Company ought, like the Old Company, to trade on a joint stock. But there were some who held that our commerce with India would be best carried on by means of what is called a regulated Company. ”

“ The aggregation known as the joint-stock company, everybody is willing now to admit, was absolutely necessary in order to secure the machinery, that is to say, the tools, the raw stock, the buildings, and to provide for the permanence of the venture. ”

“ Suppose that five hundred men shall desire to establish a co-operative foundry. They will make a preliminary organization and apply to the officers of the Lorin French Labor Aid Company for the capital necessary to conduct the enterprise. Those officers will—after careful inquiry—ascertain that the buildings, land, machinery, and plant of such a foundry will cost $900,000, and that it will require a cash capital of 178$100,000 to carry the current business. ”

“ When those companies do not trade upon a joint stock, but are obliged to admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine, and agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member trading upon his own stock, and at his own risk, they are called regulated companies. When they trade upon a joint stock, each member sharing in the common profit or loss, in proportion to his share in this stock, they are called joint-stock companies. ”

“ Secondly, The directors of a joint-stock company have always the management of a large capital, the joint stock of the company, a part of which they may frequently employ, with propriety, in building, repairing, and maintaining such necessary forts and garrisons. But the directors of a regulated company, having the management of no common capital, have no other fund to employ in this way, but the casual revenue arising from the admission fines, and from the corporation duties imposed upon the trade of the company. ”

“ Said corporation is formed for the purpose of conducting a general cotton business, and may buy and sell cotton, and may transact a cotton factorage business, may advance money or supplies for the purpose of controlling shipments of cotton, may take and receive mortgages or deeds of trust upon property to secure said advances, and generally may have all powers conferred by chapter 25 of the Annotated Code of 1892 necessary and requisite to carry out the purpose of said corporation. ”

“ Ere the new company was formed, Mr. Field (13th September, 1855) addressed Lord Clarendon, requesting aid, and protection and privileges, and on the 20th November received a reply from the Secretary to the Treasury, engaging to furnish ships for soundings, and to consider favourably any request for help in laying the Cable, to pay 14,000l. (4 per cent. on capital) as remuneration for Government messages, till the net profits were 6 per cent., when the payment was to become 10,000l. for twenty-five years, and the Royal assent was given to the Act of Incorporation of the Company July 27th, 1857. ”

“ The Trading Company.—English pioneers in exploration found an instrument for colonization in companies of merchant adventurers, which had long been employed in carrying on commerce with foreign countries. Such a corporation was composed of many persons of different ranks of society—noblemen, merchants, and gentlemen—who banded together for a particular undertaking, each contributing a sum of money and sharing in the profits of the venture. ”

“ The great development in stock-exchange business in recent times is due chiefly to the sale of foreign and colonial bonds, and the remarkable growth and spread of joint-stock companies since the Joint-Stock Company Act of 1862. ”

“ The company were to be enabled to purchase lands, &c., and to exercise all the usual powers of bodies corporate; but were not to trade in the buying or selling of any goods or merchandise, except that they might deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold, or silver, and in selling of any goods or merchandise which should be pledged to them for money lent thereon, and might also sell the produce of their own lands. ”

“ Shares are of various kinds—ordinary, preference, deferred, founders’ and management. Into what classes of shares the original capital of the company shall be divided, what shall be the amount of each class, and their respective rights, privileges and priorities, are matters for the consideration of the promoters of the company, and must depend on its special circumstances and requirements. ”

“ On the one hand, the approved methods of corporation finance may in some measure be resorted to by a private firm, Without formal conversion of the concern into the corporate form; and on the other hand, an incorporated company may continue to carry on its business after the manner usual with privately owned concerns. ”

“ The items on the balance sheet of either type of corporation which are evidence of the activities peculiar to a holding company are, as stated above, the securities of the subsidiary concerns held by the holding company and whatever advances have been made on open account to the various subsidiaries in order to provide funds for making extensions or for recouping losses incurred by the subsidiaries. ”

“ It is undoubtedly the duty of every one of the Company's servants to encourage a spirit of industry among {83} the natives, and to use every means in their power to induce them to procure furrs and other commodities for trade, by assuring them of a ready purchase and good payment for every thing [124] they bring to the Factory: and I can truly say, that this has ever been the grand object of my attention. ”

“ That no corporation engaged in commerce shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital of another corporation engaged also in commerce, where the effect of such acquisition may be to substantially lessen competition between the corporation whose stock is so acquired and the corporation making the acquisition, or to restrain such commerce in any section or community, or tend to create a monopoly of any line of commerce. ”

“ In 1862 we found them a very heterogeneous community of about eight thousand souls—Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, English Canadians, French Canadians, Americans, English half-breeds, Canadian half-breeds, and Indians. Nearly the whole population, with the exception of a few storekeepers and free-traders, live by the Company, and the Company is king. The Company makes the laws, buys the produce of the chase and of the farm, supplying in return the other necessaries and the luxuries of life. ”

“ They were empowered to raise among themselves £86,000, in eight hundred and sixty shares of £100 each, with further power to raise a further sum of £40,000, if necessary. The affairs of the company are managed by twenty proprietors, who form a committee, and who are under the control of the general meetings of the company. ”

“ At first, corporations could be formed under the general laws only for a limited number of purposes-usually those which required a relatively large fixed capital, like transportation, banking, and insurance, and mechanical, mining, and manufacturing enterprises. ”

“ A and B, partners, incorporate as the American Baking Company. The authorized capitalization is $250,000. Each partner subscribes for an amount of stock equal to his interest in the partnership, and C, an outsider, subscribes for the remainder of the stock at par. The corporation purchases the assets and assumes the liabilities of the partnership, paying therefor with stock as above. C pays his subscription in cash. The balance sheet of the partnership on that date was as follows:
Make the opening entries for the new corporation and [Pg 349] also close the books of the partnership. ”

“ Ownership of a majority of its stock constitutes the control of a corporation, when the inquiry is whether a combination or monopoly has been formed to stifle competition between two or more rival and competing railroads. ”

“ The capital stock of said corporation shall not exceed two hundred thousand dollars, and shall be divided into shares of not less than one hundred dollars each, transferable as its by-laws may provide. ”

“ We have here purchases by constituent members of chain stores of milk and milk products that will be sold at the particular store. The competitor is not a member of a competing chain or, if it is, the chain of which it is a part is a smaller one. ”

“ The argument supposes the corporation to have been originated for the management of an individual concern, to be founded upon contract between individuals, having private trade and private profit for its great end and principal object. ”

“ In so divesting itself of such capital stocks respondent shall not sell or transfer, either directly or indirectly, any of such capital stocks to any officer, director, stockholder, employe or agent of respondent, or to any person under the control of respondent, or to any partnership or corporation either directly or indirectly owned or controlled by respondent. ”

“ The company, while it was a mining and manufacturing company and nothing else, voted 'to authorize the building of a railroad . . . for the transportation of coal and other productions to market. . . .
'That a sum . . . be raised for the purpose of building and equipping said railroad, and afford facilities for transportation to market for the mineral and other productions of the company's property; . . . to issue bonds . ”

“ That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience. ”

“ It is in the industrial corporations that this capitalization of good-will is seen to the best advantage - including, under the term "industrial corporations," railway companies, iron and steel concerns, mines, etc., as well as what are known in the stock market specifically as "industrials." The corporation is, of course, not the only form of business concern in the industrial field, but it is the typical, characteristic form of business organization for the management of industry in modern times, and the peculiarities of modern capital are therefore best seen in these modern corporations. ”