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price after allotment being 24% premium.
4. On the other hand, the Bank of Montreal invited subscriptions on the 17th instant for an issue of £1,200,000 Three and one-half per cent Stock of the Provincial Government of Ontario at the fixed price of 90% per cent, and the point of attraction in this Loan was that only 10% was required on application and allotment combined, and that 88% for the payments required were deferred until the middle of May, thus giving every opportunity to those who might take the Loan speculatively to hold it for about two months at little cost to themselves, by which time the present stringency in the money market and the state of political uncertainty as to South Africa at present existing might be expected to have passed away.
The Loan was decidedly well secured and was required for the purpose of funding the floating debt of the Province, no funded debt having been hitherto in existence. The Loan was therefore in every respect a legitimate one, and there was no apparent reason why it should not have proved a success, except perhaps that the price was somewhat high, having regard to the fact that it was not a Trustee security, and that it was not therefore as desirable an investment as the securities of Colonial Governments generally.
For these reasons, and probably in consequence of the state of uncertainty and depression existing in the Stock market at the present time, the Loan proved to be a complete failure, and the Underwriters have been required to take up about 90% of the issue, and the Loan is now quoted at 2% discount.
7. We have given the Colonial Government these particulars not because we desire to imply that the system of issuing Loans at a fixed price is a mistake, or that the issues of these particular Loans were mismanaged, but to show that