VICKERS-ABMSTRONG FUSION.
Shareholders of Vickers and Arrnstrongs are, I think, to be commended for having promptly given assent to the Scheme for the fusion of certain activities of both firms in the new company, of which particulars have already appeared in the Spectator. Armstrong shareholders, however, in particular, must, I think, be congratulated upon a prompt and courageous facing of most unpleasant facts. The experts concerned in
investigating the results of some years of mismanagement, following upon the War period, have had the unwelcome duty of explaining that-at least £11,000,000-an amount consider-
ably exceeding the share eapirsd--of assets will have to be written off as lost. Consequently, the shareholders were con. fronted with the fact that in any future prosperity of the new company and of Arrnstrongs, their share is bound to be a small one and probably longdelayed. Small wonder, then- especially in view of the fact that many of the shareholders were actually workpeople in Armstrongs-that some were disposed at the meeting held this week to criticize the past management and to desire further information concerning the losses. Nevertheless, shareholders as a whole had the wisdom to perceive that recrimination at the moment was worse than useless and that the only chance of obtaining some small return later on lay in their assenting to the present proposals. Accordingly, the plan for the creation of the new company on the lines embodied in the Scheme submitted a fortnight ago will doubtless now be carried through and, indeed, its progress should be accelerated by the promptness with which assent has been obtained from holders of all the various classes of securities in both companies which are affected.
A. W. K.
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