Series 4 > Scottish industrial history

176 SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
Company being adequate for that purpose? - Yes; that has
been the plan.
From your knowledge of the accounts of the Company, do you
consider the Surplus Property Account anything more than a
double charge of Capital, it having been already paid for in
the Capital Account, so that opening this account is just
making capital pay twice over for the same thing? -1 think it
virtually amounts to that.
Tell us honestly - was the object of making these cross-entries not
for the purpose of confusing the Auditors, to prevent the
sums from being followed easily? - Well, there is a good deal
in that. I daresay that was an important element in the matter.
You see I was working for the Directors, and they were sup¬
posed to be working for the Shareholders.
Do you hold yourself responsible for the correct statement of the
accounts in the Books of the Company? - No; I do not.
Then who is?-Well, my superior officer, I believe, Mr. Row-
botham.
You mean that you make entries in them according as he desires
you ? - Either him or Mr. Hodgson, one or other. Of course,
nothing is done without Mr. Rowbotham’s concurrence.
Among the documents handed to the Committee, under the same
call, a press copy of the following statement, prepared by the
Accountant and handed to the Chairman, explaining the adjust¬
ment of the first prepared half-yearly Account for July 1866, is
very important. The proposed adjustment is in it carefully tabu¬
lated.
IV. REMEDIAL MEASURES
The systematic concealment thus practised on the Shareholders,
and the crisis which has ensued, renders it absolutely necessary that
the management of the affairs of the Company should, without
delay, be placed in the hands of a Board possessing the confidence
of the Shareholders and the Public, so that such measures may be
devised and carried out as shall restore the character and position
of the Company, and ensure that its affairs shall in future be conduc¬
ted with integrity.