It would be idle to pretend that the allegations, which have recently obtained a good deal of local currency, to the effect that German capital is employed in businesses that are carried on in the dominion have not been directed to a greater or less extent against an important trading concern that has its headquarters in Dunedin, namely, the Drapery and General Importing Company of New Zealand (Limited).
The figures that were quoted recently by a member of a deputation to the Mayor, with the object of showing that persons who dealt with an unnamed company were in effect trading with the enemy, unquestionably had reference to this company.
In the circumstances the community will be interested in the publication by the company of a certificate by a leading firm of accountants which shows how the shares in it are actually distributed.
The certificate states the position in admirably clear and perfectly straightforward terms. The paid-up capital of the company at the present time is 241,708. Of this 196,852 is held in the British dominions, principally in New Zealand, in which 2131 shareholders out of a total of 2170 are domiciled.
Capital in ordinary and preference shares to the extent of 44,856 is held by residents in Germany, six in number, who are all members of the families of original founders of the company and acquired their holdings partly by inheritance or by gift and partly by purchase with funds given to them out of the New Zealand capital of a parent.
The important point to be observed in connection with these holdings is that the capital represented in them is not in the true sense of the expression German capital at all.
The founders of the Drapery and General Importing Company, Mr Bendix Hallenstein, whose memory is respected in Dunedin as that of a shrewd and enterprising man of business and a good citizen, and his brothers, came to the British colonies fifty odd years ago with practically no assets beyond their personal character, their industry, and their commercial acumen.
Success attended their enterprises in the land of their adoption, for they became naturalised as British subjects, and from time to time they utilised their accumulated savings in the extension of their concerns and in the opening of fresh businesses.
The Drapery and General Importing Company was established by them to provide an investment for spare capital that was possessed by them as the outcome of their trading in New Zealand.
It is actually New Zealand capital, therefore, which, through the accident of the residence in Germany of members of the families of the Messrs Hallenstein, has lately been described as German capital invested in the Drapery and General Importing Company.
But the holders of the shares represented by this capital, who are all of British birth, do not, simply by reason of their German domicile, participate in the profits of the company during the currency of the war; the dividends payable to them are, as the accountants' certificate shows, retained in New Zealand.
It will be seen that the company is preponderatingly a British and a New Zealand company, and that the capital which is invested in it is capital that was wholly provided from British sources.
When these facts are realised it will be admitted, we think, that the statements which have been circulated respecting the Drapery and General Importing Company and which must have been injurious to it have been without any real justification.
- ODT, 24.11.1914.
