November 26, 1906.J
A SUCCESSFUL JAPANESE
SPECULATOR.
THREE MILLIONS FROM ALMOST NOTHING.
Tokyo rings with the talk of a remarkably successful speculator in shares who has made a clear profit of three million yen in the course of the last year or two. Mr. Suzuki, a young man of scarcely 30 years of age, is comparatively a novice in speculation, but there seems in his destiny something irresistibly bold, tempered by good sound judgment, which has made him the hero of the day in speculating circles. In an interview with a representative of the Jiji Shimpo, Mr. Suzuki remarked :--
'Before the outbreak of the late war I had been living at an obscure house earning a monthly salary of Y. 100 or thereabouts. Of course had no large amount of money at my c.mmand. Just prior to the war I happened to make a gain of a few hundred yen by buying share o Kanegafuchi ottons. The outbreak of hostilities brought in its train a violent fall in shares and everybody seemed to by selling out. The naval successes at Chemulpo and Port Arthur brought about no material change for the be ter in the share market. Amidst this unsettled and pannicky stat of affairs I stuck to buying all the time. Amongst the shares that I bought most were Kaneg fuchi cottons, Tokyo sugars. To yo Exchanges, Tokyo gas, Tokyo electric lights, and Nippon Yasen Kaishas. Especially did I feel convinced of the promising nature of Tokyo sugar shares, which I had bought up at every possible opportunity. The resul! has been hat they
have retured to me a profit of at least one
million yen.
"As I had expected, the tone of the market began to revive towards the close of last year and, with the passing over of the storm cased by the railway nationalisation scheme, a great rise in shares has been brought about. I was persuaded that in the near future a rise would be seen in the Tokyo Street Railway shares, and I therefore began buying them up, begin- ning last year when there were practically no buyers. In ugust last I bought at a single meeting 12,000 shares of the company, forward delivery, at Y72.50 and this at one bidding. Such a thing is almost unpr cedented in the annals of the Japanese Exchanges. Although the Street Railway shares were
not very popular I was convinced that with the return of prosperity in business circles the shares would
rise.
“Well, I have cleared a millon
yen
in Tokyo sugar, about the same amount in Tokyo Exchange shares. Y600,000 in Street Railway shares, about Y500,000 in other electric railways, Hoden petroleum, Tokyo gas, and Japan railways, Y600 in Kanegafuchi cottons, and about Y300,000 in sundry shares, making a total profit of something like four millions, of which about one million goes to my brother. If I had not erred in my judgment as to the issue of the peace egotiations I could have made a few millions more.
No, I do not intend te continue in my speculation in shares any longer, Lut I propose to engage in foreign trade and the introduction of foreign capital."
LUGGAGE INSPECTION AT SHANGHAI,
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
dispatch or discretion and had it rained the con- fusion and distress among the passengers must have been terrible. If, as we suppose, the new rule is to be strictly applied, it is indispensable that passengers shall be spared all the inconve- nience and annoyance possible. 'Passing the customs" is an ordeal at the best of times, even to those most innocent of any desire to defrand the revenue; decency requires it shall be light- ened as much as possible.
The long-expected has happened and the privilege passengers landing at Shanghai have hitherto enjoyed of escaping the delay and unpleasantness of inspection of their personal luggage for customs purposes has been abruptly withdrawn. Tue first victims of the new order were the arrivals by the R. M. 8. Empress of Japan and they suffered all the additional harshness and discomfort which falls to those upon whom su experiment is being tried, hen the new and covered pontoon in front
CHINESE RETROGRESSION.
It is stated in the Nanfangpao that "the Throne has approved the recommendation of the Board of Education to order all the guccessful candidates (Chinshihs as well as Chajous) at the recent metropolitan axamiuà tion to pursue a three years' course of Chinese literature at the. Collega for Chinshihs, Peking." If the report is true, as it appears likely to be. China has shown once again ber capacity for disappointing her best friends, by negativing a recent progressive motion. Mach importance has been attached to the examina- tion in Peking of those students who have bean educated in foreign knowledre an the conferring upon them of degrees which were expected to qualify them for official life;. Most of these students have already, in addition to their foreign acquirements, some knowledge of the Chinese classies. and it was distinetly understood that their scientific training was to be made available for government service at once. Ancient prejudica, however, has again won the day and the three years' probationary literary course, which is now made essential. not only imposes an aggravating delay, but makes it evident that the Chine e Government service is still to be recruited on the old basis. It will discourage students from taking the foreign courses and tend to make them lose half the benefit of such courses, even if they take them.-N.-C. Daily News.
REVIEW,
The Companies Ordinance of Hongkong, being No. 1 of 1865. with introduction, notes, and an index. arranged by J. W. LEE JONES, Barrister at law. Hongkong: Kelly & Walsh, Ld., 1997.
We welcome this new edition of the Deputy
Registrar's useful work, strongly and sensibly yet not unattractively bound by the publishers. as it is in several ways a decided improvement. excellent index, ex- Chief perhaps, is the haustively arranged so that heads, sub-heads and cross-heads appear at a glance, and so that reference is greatly facilitated by sectional numbers. The reader no longer has to waste time hnating through a whole page for the section he requires. The type is agreeably varied and all of a bold face. The introduction is quite sufficient to show that the compilation appeals to many others than lawyers. It is mecum. and the Company secretary's unde the stareholder's adviser. For instange, there must be many interested in companies who need to be reminded that the list of their fellow shareholders is open to them during office hours, and that a penalty attaches to any refusal to show them what they want to gee. Instances are not unbeard of of difficulties having been placed in the way of such. Recent prosecutions, also, need not have taken place, and the defence would certainly have been untenable, if all company officers had studied this work. There is no possible excuse for ignorance of local company law when such a
work is available.
DEPARTURE OF THE FLEET.
Од November 24th the feet steamed out of the harbour for a cruise through the of the Custom House was constructed last year Philippines. Java, and the Straits. The four the understanding was that an arrangement Vegzele. King Alfred. Diadem, Mon mouth
Singapore where they are expected to arrive
on December 5th. The vessels will separate
would be made to la d passengers from all the ocean-going steariers there, and that
and Astraed, are expected to remain at Manila in the building on the Bund proper facilities for a few days, afterwards proceeding to would be found for such Custom inspection of luggage as is usual. Arrangements, however, to what effect bave not been concluded and pas. sengers by the Empress were landed at the P. & O.jetty. No steps had been taken to enable the luggage inspection to be made either with
and go on different cruises and will be joined ata meeting placeby the Alacrity, Clio and Kent. on the homeward Saigon will be visited journey, and Hongkong should be reached on January 28th.
MISCELLANEOUS.
369
Mr. Walter A. Fitton, the Manila share- broker, to whose breezy circulars we occasionally gave publicity, and who, we understand, is well known in Hongkong, died on November 17th at Baguio, Philippines.
A Chinese Imperial decree dated Nov. 14th says:-We hereby promote Cha Pao-k'nei [better known in Shanghai as Taotai Chu Pao-fay, Manager-in-chief of the Shanghai Office of the Chinese Mercantile Telegraph Administration], Senior Councillor of the Waiwupo, to be Junior Deputy Vice President of the same Board; Yang Ch'a, retiring Minister to the Court of Tokyo, is appointed Junior Councillor of the said Waiwupu.
In Japan. since the conclusion of peace with Russia, 3,896, new companies have been promoted, prospectuses drafted, and their com. bined capital added to the fund for the extension of old companies exceeds Y700,000,000. The company flotation mania continued in Septem- ber and October last, and the capital of the new companies proposed in these two months amounted to Y56,383,000 and Y92,754,000 respectively. The agregate amounts of the proposed increase of capital of old companies during these months were Y8,342,000 and Y29,735,000 respectively, and these, added to the total up to August last, brings the grand total up to nearly Y900,000,000.
The news of the launch of the Satsuma was
wired by our Tokyo correspondent on Nov. 15th. He described her as the largest battleship in the world. The dimensions of the new ship are as follows:- Displacement 19,200 Tons. Length 482 feet. Beam 83 feet. Speed 20 knots. Her armament consists of four 12-in., and ten 10-in gus besides secondary ordnance and five torpelo tubes. Only thirteen months have elapsel since the laying of her keel and despite the various inconveniencs encountered all her ordnance and other principal machinery have been made in Japan. A telegram to the N.C. Daily News adds: Referring to the launch of the Sutenma the Kokumin exclaims “Behold; here is a battleship bigger than the Dreadnought
and constructed designed
exclusively by Japanese. Other newspapers are similarly jubilant al claim that the Satsuma is the biggest and most powerful battleship not only in Japan but in the world.
Recently at Singapore, a youthful Chinese lad was charged with having kidnapped a pre- possessing Malay girl named Esah The story seems quite a romance, for though the boy is charged by the girl's mother, Esah's story is that she is sixteen years old and has known Kim Watt, the by charged with kidnapping her, since her childhood and is very fond of him. As her mother illtreated her and did not giva her enough food, she asked her sweetheart Kim Watt to take her away and one might at the romantic hour of midnight they eloped to the boy's mother's house. Here they spent four days of bliss before the girl's mother tracked her daughter down and broke up the honeymoon. The young lover's story is similar to the girl's. He is seventeen years old and is a compositor in the Straits Times office. The police were evidently in sympathy with the lovers, and it is not expected that they will be separated.
A tragedy such as the one recently enac`ed in Peking when a foreigner was enticed at night into a side street within the Tartar City and murdered is happily of rare occurrence in China. From the few details that can be gathered the N.-C. Daily News thinks that personal revenge must have constituted the sole motive, but unless the offer of a 8200 reward in luces ons of the participants in the orime to disclose the identity of the culprit, the matter must remain a subject for speculation. According to a northern contemporary the murdered man is the H. J. Pless who obtained such prominent notoriety in the Transvaal in his capacity of compound manager at one of the "Chinese" mines on the Rand. His handling of the coolies was the chief reason for his dismissal, and to avenge himself on his late employers he spread abroad in England tales of the brutal treatment of the Chinese, which, where true, were drawn from his own acts. The effect of these tales upon the British Electorate is now a matter of his tory. Before Pleas could be brought to book, he had left the Transvaal to return to
China.
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