+
102
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A "HANSARD " BACK NUMBER.
(Daily Press, 9th February.) Just now, when every other man in Hong- kong utters at least once a day the words Derby sweeps," while the police conti us organizing anti-gambling raids on Chinese, any cognate subject would appear appro- priate. It so happens, moreover, that various items in the public press conspire to turn attention to the Rialto. The Go- down lately devoted some space to forward selling of shares, and the following passage caught the eye
"Some years ago they overdid it in Hong- kong, and a law was passed having for its object the prevention of time bargains unless the seller was in actual possession of the shares be sold and stated the number under which they were registered. To buy is all right, apparent ly, for even if you only possess s-ventron dollars you may sign a contract to take delivery of a hundred Selamas four months hence, and if the market goes against you-well, it does go against you, and we will not investigate your case too closely. So you think that Eden is again revived in Hongkong, and that bulls and bears walk about in Queen's Road without having a bite at each other? Far from i, Speculation-gambling if you wish-is such an inherent trait in the nature of man that no
artificial barrier has yet been invented which will effectually eradicate that vice from the breast of the human being. Speculators in Hongkong -gamblers if you wish-agreed among them. selves that, law or no law, they would have their quarterly flutter. To circumvent the law they
"forward agreed among themselves that any share contract made would be considered legal, as between honourable men, and that if a loser desired to shield himself behind the profection of the law he could do so, but then he would be considered su outcast, a bad eøg.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
newcomers.
[February 18, 1907.
He is supposed to be extremely wealthy | the secret of how it is and may be done, and to be in possession, or capable of getting As we have said. a particular number of possession to-morrow, of thousands of shares of Hansard tells m uch that has been forgotten any company he thinks fit to deal in. He goes and much that has never beeu learned by into the market to-morrow and buys as many as he can lay baud, ou, let us say 3,000 Ha enters into contracts for the sale of 2,000 on time, to be delivered three months hence, at largely enhanced prices. By his own operations in buying and any other means at his disposal he has raised the price of the stock, and in every one of the contracts he enters into be specifies the numbers of the shares. He has them; they are lying in bis safe. [Mr. FRANCIS was showing how useless the Or.
dinance might be; not how big operators really go to work here] And these shares, in lots of
25 or 50, are sold to the same class of men as
CHINA TRADE IN 1906..
(Daily Press, 11th February.) The article which we reprint in tɔ-dw's issue from the financial and commercial supplement of the Times incorporates in one review various points which bave heen from time to time separately dealt with in our columns, but it is none-the-less a before, who will be just as eager after this Bill useful summary of which to take note. The is passed to make a little profit as they are now, alleged excessive quantity of imports to And when the day comes, what will be their China during last year is not to be wondered position? It depends upon this big operator.at; it was a natural sequel to the late war; It may have suited his purpose to allow the and it explaine to
some extent the dis- market to contione to rise and the buyers may have been able to sell in advance and pocket appointment at the failure of the great their profits, or it may not have suited his par- expectations that wer? hased on that pose, in which case he has these 1,000 shares in opening" of the world's greatest market; reserve, which he sells out in lots of 21 at a The expectations were not unreasonable. time, each time at a dollar under the market the issue of the war should reasonably have rate and in the course of a month or two the paved the way for an enormous demand; market has dropped sixty or seventy points, but while it did so, the good effects were He has done it, not by playing with loaded discounted by other factors that might just dice, not by selling short. To sacrifice a portion of his property and lose a dollar or two
as easily have been foreseen, excapt perhaps that extraordinary boycott of American goods. The Shanghai' writer's suggestion of the true inwardness of that "patriotic movement is worth consideration. There is
on
each of his 1,000 shares in the hope of making twenty or thirty dollars on each of the other 2,000, does that deserve to be stigmatized as playing with loaded die? Is it not a per- fecily legitimate use to make of his wealth, his
position, and his credit ? "
Quite legitimate, it is clear; but the small fry may as well know how helpless they are in a field of enterprise ocupied by bigger banking accounts, with influence far beyond the mild variety indicated by that bygone Q.C.
As Mr. J: J. Keswick
printed out in reply, the hypothetical cise did not adequately represent the real uture of big operations on the local share market, "commercial imm»- which he described as
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In New York, we
was com-
of
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"
nothing inherently improbable about it, and the Chinese are quite capable enough to foresee the profitable aspects of any such
them. That "the Chinaman is a born operations before they decide to “engineer' gambler taking long odds, risking much for big profits, chancing heavy losses with the prospect of correspondingly heavy gains” is true enough, though there are obærvers who dht if his "trada custom of settling all accounts within the calendar year much of a check ou rambling as the writer seems to think it. We command the admir. able caution with which he warns Western
tion
15
44
is as
raders against accepting every explana. of the commercial situation in Manchuria. Against some of the extraor dinary explanations vouchsafed, 'we have The allusion to the increased biblness of the previously felt obliged to protest
14
That refers to the exciting events and debates of 1890 91, and the ages of that particular volume of the Hongkong Hansard are among the more interesting in our local history. The Hon. T. H. WHITEHEAD and the Hon. J. J. KESWICK introduced a Bill with the object indicated in the foregoing rali.y." The Bill passed, but it has never extract, and Mr. J. J. FRANCIS, Q.C., was protected anyone; the best protection is to be informed of the state of affairs, and it is permitted to make a long and able argu- ment against it, on behalf of the local stock. amazing still to find people, otherwise intel- brokers who petitioned against this restraint lizent, dealing in ignorance with men who of trade,—or restraint of gambling, accord. ignore that Ordinance. ing to the point of view. Oue of his notice, on January 8th, there
menced on Wall Street a new scheme for the arguments was that the new law could not
particularly these in any way prevent or remedy the evil at evangelisation of men, which it was aimed, an objection that connected with brokerage and Stock Ex-Hunghutze since the war is something more than a possible explanatiou," and it is ch inge offices," a class which many people applies to many ordinances; and in tujs case, as the Godown points out, it has been have rashly condemned as boyud all hope probable that the Chinese inability to maintain order in those trade-hungry areas ineffective. Even the formation of a Stock- re lemption. A man of God opened the
will yet allow circumstances to arise which brokers' Association, first suggested about | business day with prayer, and invited the that time as a better remedy, has not pre-brokers and jobbers to join in singing the may further postpone the shuking of the Old Hundredth." The Daily Telegraph Chines rule there may make this Pagoda-tree. The re-establishment of pure- vented the law being broken, and shares are still sold forward without their numbers correspondent says: being either known or stated. None of Hongkong's anti-gambling ordinances has dammed the flood in the slightest; at the most they have diverted some of it into secret and less easily observed channels. The discussion incidental to the passing of that Bill must have done good indirectly at the time, and it might still do good were it revived in some way now. Real gamblers playing for the excitement past saving, or do not need to be saved; they at least get for their money much of what they set out to buy. But the "griffin" entering into speculation with the idea of making money should make a point of getting Hansard for 1890-91 and carefully reading the debates on this Bill. It will save him much money. The smail punter, who hopes to win, but can't afford to lose, might do worse than ponder one passage in the argument of Mr. FRANCIS, Q.C, which ran; There are two or three big speculators in the Colony, ex'remely wealthy men, who carry on bearing operations, lowering the price of shares. Let us think of any one of these men
are
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which so much has been said, is summarily treated by this apparently well-informed contributor. The "supposed importation through Russian ports is not material,” he Favя, as it can supply only the thinly settled northern part of Manchuria.” To
debatable ground "freely open to trade,” "This is no hasty and unprepared scheme for but the Japanese have their doubts of this beginning the day in New York's fancial and they may be accounted fair judges., world, but has been carefully matured by Dr.The mpetition of the Russian ports, about Warren after communication with such lading lights as Mr. Pierpont Morgan, Mr. James Stillman, Mr. John D Rockefeller, and Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, just to mention a fow American kings of finace, Already, as I am informed on inquiry to-day, more than ons brokerage office here opens its business day with prayor, a conspicuous example being Mrs. J Alden Gaylord, one of the best-known lady financiers in America, It was Mrx, Gaylord, indeed, who depicted the needs of Wall Street to Dr. Warren, and row all the arrangements for inaugurating rvios outside the Stock Ex- change just before the bell goes have been made, There will be no instrumental music, bat some well-known professi¬uals have been engaged to lead the singing, and some rominent bankers, financiers, and others have promised their sa port."
This sort of thing cannot do much harm. though it may give a few of the lambe more confidence in the predatory animals; but the most useful kind of preaching for the uninformed is that which lets them into
come
further south, the imports also would have to risk the tender mercies of the Hunghutze. Japanese competition is more serious but that is to he expectel; and the reports of Shanghai merchants who made special investigations have the support of this observer's conservative estimate of its nature. Then there is the somewhat neglected (in this connection) factor of exchange, which has made the China trade **a vast gamble on exchanga”
The old theatre at Yokohama-full of tender memories for many a China-hand---is advertised for sale.