[34] “The borrower is also bound to pay the lender whatever interest by way of coupons or dividends or otherwise and all bonuses and accretions that would have been paid to the lender on the securities he has lent had he kept them. These are in practice treated as increases to the market price of the borrowed securities. The reason for this provision is that the lender is the actual owner of the securities and as such owner he is entitled to whatever they may earn by way of interest or in any other way. He has simply temporarily let another have the use of them, and, since the securities can be and are disposed of by the borrower, the lender would lose the interest, etc., which is paid on the borrowed securities between the date that they are borrowed and the date when they are returned and the loan cancelled, unless the borrower paid an equivalent amount to him. On the other hand, any assessment the lender would have had to pay on the borrowed securities during the continuance of the loan is a charge against him; for such an assessment is a burden adherent to ownership. In practice it is treated as a reduction of the market price.”—Eliot Norton “On Short Sales of Securities through a Stockbroker.” The John McBride Co., New York, 1907.
[35] (Memorial of the stockbrokers addressed to the Minister of Finance, 1843, p. 44, footnote. Quoted by Vidal, q. v., p. 46.)
[36] Some of those who admit the value of the stock market have subjected to severe criticism those who speculate for the fall of stocks. One reads constantly of the “bears” trying to accomplish such and such results by depressing securities. Napoleon had a long talk with Mollien, his Minister of Finance, in seeking to demonstrate that those who sold “short,” in the belief that national securities would fall, were traitors to their country. He argued that if these men were selling national securities for future delivery at less than their present value they were guilty of treason to the State. But Mollien replied in substance: “These men are not the ones who determine the price; they are only expressing their judgment upon what it will be. If they are wrong, if the credit of our State is to be maintained in the future at its former high standard, in spite of your military preparations, these men will suffer the penalty by having to make delivery at the price for which they sold, for they must go into the market and buy at the price then prevailing. It is their judgment, not their wish, that they express.”—“Wall Street and the Country,” by Charles A. Conant, pp. 111–112, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1904.
[37] “Lombard Street,” p. 158.
[38] Charles A. Conant, “Principles of Money and Banking” (New York, 1905). The reader is invited to consult, in this connection, that portion of the Report of the Hughes Commission, (see [Appendix]) having to do with short selling.
[39] Report of the Commissioner, Washington, 1908.
[40] Despite the effort to avoid technical terms in these pages, the value of the bear should be considered from still another angle. Smith, a bear, sells short to Jones, a bull. The economic usefulness of Jones then becomes problematical, since he may sell out at any moment. His permanence as a holder or owner is merely optional, and his usefulness in the economic scheme of things is impaired. As a market factor he may be ignored. But there is nothing optional about Smith’s position, for he is now a compulsory buyer; his economic status is fixed; he has become a very real potential force.
[41] “The Stock Exchange and the Money Market,” by Horace White, “Annals of the American Society of Political and Social Science,” Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, Nov., 1910, pp. 563–573.
[42] Ibid., p. 564.
[43] The Stock Exchange authorities were asked by the Hughes Commissioners in 1909 what effect would result if this law were repealed. An interesting historical summary is involved in the reply to this question.