CO129-251 - Acting Governor Barker - 1891 [9-11] — Page 75

unless there are facilities for dealing in uo- mitral ar faotitions shares a limit is soon reached. The effect of untrammelled bulling and bearing is to give an extraneous value to the stocks operated in. If share buying and selling were normally conducted, the value of shares would fluctuate in ac- cordance with the results and prospects of the enterprises they represent. But the Bull and the Boar step in and introduce a disturbing element, and this disturbing element is often so strong as to completely vitiate the normal fluctuation. That com- merce suffers thereby is incontestable. So disastrous in many instances have been the consequences that the advantage of joint- stock business has been called in question. Bulls and Bears may neutralise each other, but in the process they wrock many enter- prises. The philanthropy of the 'Bear' is on a level with the philanthropy of Robin Hood, who robbed the rich to give alms to the poor. And just as society had to suppress the outlaw, so society is striving to suppress the Bear and his twin-brother the Bull.' The evil wrought by the twin opponents is recognised by every thinking man that studies the course of business, Mr Francis and his co-memorialists freely admit the evil. It is only when they are carried away by their animosity that they speak of the natural adjustment effected by 'Bulls' and 'Bears. They are even more anxious, or pretend to be, to cure the evil, or at least lessen it, than "Mr Kes- wick himself. What they object to is the method of treatment. The disease they admit hos they have a better cure. This brings us to the all-important and the most practical question, the one on which the Bill hinges-ought the remndy to come from State intervention or from the action

of merchants in self-defencs i Tu this ques- tion a uniform answer cannot be given, as the answer is dependent on the condi- tion of the society who form the state. To morrow we hope to deal with this ques- tion, and to show that in Hongkong, where it is difficult to establish the voluntary correc'ives that exist in England, legisla- tive action, such that adopted, is necessary and likely to be productive of good; and we shall at the same time endea- vour to answer the two principal objections to the bill urged by the memorialists-the only definite objections raised-the influ- ence on the aural arbitrage business done and the change made in the legal character and consequences of a contract for sale on time,

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