An important enlargement of the Stock Exchange was opened in January, 1885, the addition being made of what is still called the New House. Three years before, in 1882, "Burdett's Official Intelligence," the Stock Exchange encyclopædia, had appeared for the first time. It had a precursor in "The Railway Intelligence," and in 1899 its title was altered to "The Stock Exchange Official Intelligence," the alteration not being without significance. Soon after the New House was opened, in January, 1885, the Stock Exchange was honoured by a visit, in the month of March, from the late King Edward, then Prince of Wales.
In the following year, 1886, brokers were finally freed from the control of the authorities of the City of London. From time immemorial they had had to be licensed, and although the control was for a long time real and even salutary, it had been gradually whittled away until nothing remained but the payment by the broker of an annual licence fee. Even this was abolished in 1886.
The latest great shock to credit which the country has suffered, the Baring crisis of 1890, had comparatively little effect upon the Stock Exchange. Remedies had been arranged by the Bank of England even before the difficulties were known, and Stock Exchange prices had begun to recover from the effects of the crisis within a week of the announcement of its existence. A deputation from the Stock Exchange presented an address to the Governor of the Bank of England, expressing its high appreciation of the admirable and effective manner in which the crisis had been overcome.
On the Stock Exchange practice of making a market, a couple of important judgments were delivered in 1892. In the course of one of them Mr. Justice Wright remarked that "if persons for their own purposes of speculation create an artificial price in the market by transactions which are not real, but are made at a nominal premium merely for the purpose of inducing the public to take shares, they are guilty of as gross a fraud as has ever been committed and of a fraud that can be criminally brought home to them."
In 1895, during a notable boom in South African mining shares, there occurred what was known as the Battle of Throgmorton Street—between members of the Stock Exchange and the police. Members had to appear day after day on a charge of obstruction before the magistrate, who suggested that when the Stock Exchange was closed they might, instead of obstructing the thoroughfare, arrange to use the Royal Exchange. Far more serious strife, again closely connected with South African affairs, arose in the closing days of the year, when the Jameson Raid into Boer territory was followed by a severe slump in prices. The political tension of which this raid was an outcome ultimately developed into the Transvaal War, which resulted in a long period of Stock Exchange stagnation and depression. In 1896, and again in 1897, the 2-3/4 per cent. Consols touched practically 114, the highest price ever recorded. The heavy Government borrowing in connection with the war, and the reduction of the rate of interest to 2-1/2 per cent., have since reduced the price to below 73. But in spite of the stagnation and depression, the prosperity of the Stock Exchange continued to increase. Owing to the pressure upon its space, the offices of its Share and Loan Department, an important department of administration, had to be removed from the Stock Exchange building altogether, about the time when, in 1901, the Stock Exchange was celebrating its centenary.
During the past decade there have been far-reaching changes in the constitution and practice of the institution. With the object of gradually abolishing the dual control of members and proprietors, a rule requiring new members to purchase one or more shares was enacted; a long-standing bone of contention between jobbers and brokers was removed by rules more clearly defining and separating their functions; and the vexed question of brokers' commissions has led at last to the establishment of a minimum scale, with the object of preventing under-cutting by competitive firms. The long period of stagnation and depression was broken by the great rubber share boom of the spring of 1910, when business reached proportions never before witnessed in the history of the Stock Exchange.
CHAPTER XV
A BROKER'S DAY
Having mastered roughly some of the mysteries and technicalities of the Stock Exchange, we are now able to follow a broker through an average day of his life with some interest. The broker's office-boy sighs wearily to himself when he hears clerks in other walks of life dilating upon the easy hours enjoyed by the Stock Exchange and its employees. It is true that the office-boy does not have to reach his sphere of labour early enough to sweep out the place and dust the desks; that is all done for him; but he is supposed to be on the spot by about half-past nine. Until ten he is pretty well lord of the office, for the Stock Exchange clerks, as a rule, have a very easy time as regards hours. They need rarely get to town much before ten o'clock, except the youngest of the juniors, and the first personage of importance to arrive is he upon whom falls the duty of glancing through the correspondence. Of course, it all depends upon the size of the office, just as it does in other businesses, how this branch of work is organised. In the case of a big firm the letters are carefully sorted, and each department has its proportion handed over, one dealing with transfers, another with dividends, and so forth. But a smaller office may be more representative of the general run of Stock Exchange work, and in such a one the correspondence comes into the scope of the chief clerk if the partners are not energetic enough to deal with it themselves.
By half-past ten the work of the day is mapped out, the bargains of the previous day are in the checking book all ready for the unauthorised clerk to check, the transfers are being prepared for delivery or registration, the transfer receipts are run through to see what certificates are ready for collection, and a multitude of details get put into train for attention. At twenty minutes to eleven the unauthorised clerk, who has probably been reading the newspaper, declares that he will be shut out of the Settling Room and flies away to check his bargains, while the partners begin to arrive on the scene.