|
Utopia Limited
Utopia Limited, first performed in 1893,
was and remains one of the least successful
works by Gilbert and Sullivan. The plot is convoluted
and unimaginative, the music is lacklustre.
The action takes place on the south sea island
of Utopia, where King Paramount - an ardent
anglophile - has sent for England's finest representatives
to tell him how to remodel his kingdom along
English lines. Amongst his advisers is Mr Goldbury,
a company promoter, who recommends registering
the kingdom as a "company limited".
The song set out below is one
of the more memorable features of an otherwise
unmemorable opera - in it, Mr Goldbury explains
what a "company limited" is; and,
more satirically, how the corporate veil may
be exploited to defraud one's creditors.
|
|
Some seven men form
an association.
Mr. Goldbury (a company promoter):
Utopia's much too big for one small head--
I'll float it as a Company Limited!
King Paramount, the First (King of Utopia):
A Company Limited? What may that be?
The term, I rather think, is new to me.
...
Mr. Goldbury (a company promoter):
Some seven men form an Association
(If possible, all Peers and Baronets),
They start off with a public declaration
To what extent they mean to pay their debts.
That's called their Capital; if they are wary
They will not quote it at a sum immense.
The figure's immaterial--it may vary
From eighteen million down to eighteenpence.
I should put it rather low;
The good sense of doing so
Will be evident at once to any debtor.
When it's left to you to say
What amount you mean to pay,
Why, the lower you can put it at, the better.
Chorus:
When it's left to you to say, etc.
Mr. Goldbury (a company promoter):
They then proceed to trade with all who'll trust 'em
Quite irrespective of their capital
(It's shady, but it's sanctified by custom);
Bank, Railway, Loan, or Panama Canal.
You can't embark on trading too tremendous--
It's strictly fair, and based on common sense--
If you succeed, your profits are stupendous--
And if you fail, pop goes your eighteenpence.
Make the money-spinner spin!
For you only stand to win,
And you'll never with dishonesty be twitted.
For nobody can know,
To a million or so,
To what extent your capital's committed!
Chorus:
No, nobody can know, etc.
Mr. Goldbury (a company promoter):
If you come to grief, and creditors are craving
(For nothing that is planned by mortal head
Is certain in this Vale of Sorrow--saving
That one's Liability is Limited),--
Do you suppose that signifies perdition?
If so, you're but a monetary dunce--
You merely file a Winding-Up Petition,
And start another Company at once!
Though a Rothschild you may be
In your own capacity,
As a Company you've come to utter sorrow--
But the Liquidators say,
"Never mind--you needn't pay,"
So you start another company to-morrow!
Chorus:
But the liquidators say, etc.
King Paramount, the First (King of Utopia):
Well, at first sight it strikes us as dishonest,
But if its's good enough for virtuous England--
The first commercial country in the world--
It's good enough for us.
...
And do I understand that Great Britain
Upon this Joint Stock principle is governed?
Mr. Goldbury (a company promoter):
We haven't come to that, exactly--but
We're tending rapidly in that direction.
The date's not distant.
King Paramount, the First (King of Utopia): (enthusiastically)
We will be before you!
We'll go down in posterity renowned
As the First Sovereign in Christendom
Who registered his Crown and Country under
The Joint Stock Companies Act of Sixty-Two.
|
