Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/China Navigation Company

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. ✗plicit 02:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

China Navigation Company

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

About 90% of the text has been RD1 redacted that there isn't much of an article left. Draftifying seems the best next step. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:51, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Companies, China, and Singapore. UtherSRG (talk) 12:51, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My name is Robert Jennings. I am the Head of Group Archives for John Swire & Sons Ltd. (JS&S)

I do not believe that there have been any breaches of copyright in the content of the page for the China Navigation Company. If any allegations of copyright infringement by a puported copyright holder have been made then I would dispute such allegations. I believe that the page can and should be returned to its previous condition. It certainly shouldn't be deleted. CNCo celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2022 - an extraordinary achievement for a shipping company, made even more extraordinary by the fact that it is still in the hands of its original owners.

I can confirm that Swire Shipping and Swire Bulk are wholly owned operating subsidiaries of the China Navigation Company Ltd. (CNCo). CNCo is a holding company and is a wholly owned subsidiary of JS&S. I can confirm that any written history of CNCo that is the copyright of JSS, CNCo or either Swire Shipping or Swire Bulk can be used freely and without specific permission from JSS.

The history text (flagged for copyright violation) contained within the description of the CNCo physical archives (owned by JSS and held in the archive collection of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)) and shared on ‘Archives Hub’ https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/ea5125cd-1825-31be-b41a-142a903c5ede?component=e8bf8d21-b4a5-3546-ac96-9bc57cfc7319 has been reproduced (with minor edits to bring it up to date) from the introduction to the JSS collection at SOAS written by Elizabeth Hook and published originally in 1977. The copyright to this text is owned by SOAS but permission to use the text feely for non-commercial purposes is explicitly given. The link to the digitised version of the Elizabeth Hook 1977 catalogue of the JSS collection and to the permission are included below.

https://digital.soas.ac.uk/AA00001363/00001/1x?search=hook

https://digital.soas.ac.uk//permissions/

I do hope the above is sufficiently satisfactory to remove any issue. Please do contact me if there are any further questions. Tie Coup (talk) 15:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tie Coup/Robert Jennings,

The license which Wikipedia ascribes the text and contributions by editors to is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, as stated in the footer of the site. This license allows the commercial usage of the material, which evidently is incongruent with the permission to use the archive materials freely for non-commercial purposes. Do see Donating copyrighted materials for more information.

– robertsky (talk) 20:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It was I who removed the copyvio content, and left the page in its present state; unfortunately no rewrite was proposed in the four weeks the page was listed at WP:CP. I fully agree with UtherSRG that that's far from ideal, but don't think that we can justify deletion: the company has well over a century of significant history and is indisputably notable. Other options – redirect, merge or rewrite/expansion – are all preferable to deletion. If the page is kept it should be moved to Swire Shipping. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:40, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
1. Hyde, Francis E.; Harris, J. R. (1957) [1956]. Blue Funnel: A History of Alfred Holt and Company of Liverpool from 1865 to to 1914. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 34. OCLC 1148033078. Retrieved 2024-01-28 – via Internet Archive.
  The book notes: "As early as 1867 he had realised the importance of sending small steamers up the Yangtse River, but it was not until 1872 that he was able to form the China Navigation Company with a capital of £360,000. He had initially tried to persuade Alfred and Philip Holt to subscribe capital to this project, but without success. But as the venture became relatively more important to the maintenance of Holt’s main line cargoes they were induced in 1883 to loan £10,000 to Swire’s company, secured by a debenture repayable at the end of 1885. The business of the China Navigation Company eventually became so large that shipping operations finally became Butterfield & Swire’s paramount concern; after 1902 they discontinued their trading activities altogether."
2. Liu, Kwang-Ching (August 1959). "Steamship Enterprise In Nineteenth-Century China". The Journal of Asian Studies. 18 (4). doi:10.2307/2941139.
  The article notes on page 439: "In the early 1870's the China Navigation Company was organized by John Samuel Swire, head of John Swire & Co. in London, and of Butterfield & Swire in Shanghai. In 1872 Swire was able to persuade his friends and relatives in England to join him in raising £360,000 (the equivalent of Tls. 970,000) for his new company. Although one or two British merchants in the treaty ports were said to have taken shares, the shareholders' meetings were held in England, and the annual reports were never published in China."
  The article notes on page 440: "Although the China Navigation Company owned only five ships in 1877, its managing firm, Butterfield & Swire, served also as agents for five other steamships which operated mainly on South China routes. These five ships were later incorporated into the China Navigation Company's fleet in 1883."
  The article notes on page 445: "In this period, of the two major British companies, the China Navigation Company (Butterfield & Swire, agents) was the more prosperous."
  The article notes on page 448: "This was the pattern of development also followed by the China Navigation Company (under the agency of Butterfield & Swire), except that the latter was more prosperous and grew faster. Even during the frenzied competition of the 1870's, the China Navigation Company could finance expansion from current earnings. In the twenty years between 1874 and 1894, the China Navigation Company's fleet increased from six ships with a total of 10,618 tons, to twenty-nine ships totaling 34,543 tons—this despite the fact that between 1873 and 1893 the company lost a total of nine ships in accidents."
3. Johnman, Lewis; Murphy, Hugh (2017). Scott Lithgow: Dejá Vu All Over Again! The Rise and Fall of a Shipbuilding Company. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 5. ISBN 0-9738934-0-0. ISSN 1188-3928. Retrieved 2024-01-28 – via Google Books.
  The book notes: "By 1872 Swire had established his China Navigation Company, registered in London, with James Henry Scott's father among its shareholders. The younger James Henry Scott became a partner in 1874 and with Swire visited Greenock to purchase two steamers, later named Fuchow and Swatow, from John Scott IV, who in turn took a half share in each. The two vessels steamed for China and formed the basis of another new company, the Coast Boats Ownery, in which John Scott was again a substantial investor. Up to 1879 Scotts supplied six steamers to the company and by 1882 had delivered another ten. The following year Coast Boats and China Navigation merged in response to competition, with the new company retaining the China Navigation name. From modest beginnings the relationship of mutual trust and friendship between Scotts, Holt and Swire, initially through builder-client relationships and then through interlocking shareholdings, resulted in Ocean registering as a private company in 1902. In so doing, Ocean also purchased a controlling interest in the China Navigation Company. But by this time John Samuel Swire had died and James Henry Scott had become the senior partner.15 In 1917, Ocean purchased one-third of Scotts' ordinary shares at a cost of £366,640.16."
4. Jones, Geoffrey (2000). Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 37, 71–72. ISBN 0-19-829450-6. Retrieved 2024-01-28 – via Internet Archive.
  The book notes on page 37: "A major development came in 1872 when Swire’s entered the China coastal and river shipping business in direct competition to the established shipping operations of Jardine Matheson and the American firm of Russell and Co. In that year the China Navigation Company was formed to provide steamer services on the Lower Yangtze, and to supply cargoes for Holt’s ships. This was a Londonregistered limited liability company, though its shares were principally held by the Swires, the Holts, and other Liverpool families."
  The book notes on pages 71–72: "Swire’s China Navigation Company grew in the late nineteenth century as one of the leading shipping companies in the Far East. In China the firm expanded from its initial business of running steamers up the Yangtze river to the coastal trade, which by the 1890s had become the main source of revenue. The growth of the China Navigation Company was achieved by breaking into the rates agreements of the pre-existing companies, and then organizing stronger cartel arrangements with Swire’s inside them. By the late 1890s China Navigation had a fleet of forty-seven ships, considerably larger than Jardines' Indo-China, and was declaring dividends of 20 per cent per annum, although in the 1900s Japanese and other competition ended the period of great prosperity. In this decade further shipping-related investments were made, notably the building of a large dockyard and a firm to provide lighter services for China Navigation.'
5. Cowan, Charles Donald (1964). The Economic Development Of China And Japan: Studies In Economic History And Political Economy. London: George Allen & Unwin. pp. 51, 58. OCLC 350522. Retrieved 2024-01-28 – via Internet Archive.
  The book notes on page 51: "The heaviest blow to Russell and Company’s position was dealt by a concern organized in Britain. This was the China Navigation Company Limited, whose initial capital of £360,000 was organized by John Samuel Swire in London in the spring of 1872. With this capital, the company purchased the two ships and the shore properties of the Union S.N. Company, the small British firm in the Yangtze trade, and, in addition, three new ships (to be built on American models) were ordered from A. and J. Inglis, shipbuilders at Glasgow."
  The book notes on page 58: "In the first half of 1874, for example, the profits of the China Navigation Company before deducting depreciation were only £8,500 — a fact which brought 'glum looks from shareholders'. In the second half of 1874, the company yielded larger earnings only because the Glengyle, one of its steamers, was removed from the Yangtze river for service on the China coast. In order to satisfy the shareholders, the China Navigation Company declared an annual dividend of 5 per cent in early 1875. But that the company’s profits continued to be unsatisfactory is indicated by the fact that during 1875, John Swire had to arrange a loan of £57,000 from Alfred and Philip Holt for the China Navigation Company, at 5 per cent per annum."
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow China Navigation Company to pass Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Primary criteria, which requires "significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 09:55, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per excellent sources found by Cunard. Thanks 1.46.159.106 (talk) 05:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.