[106] There are 20,000 shares (£13 paid) and £416,700 debentures outstanding.
[107] It should be said, in fairness to the London jobber, that the incident here mentioned by Mr. Hirst is a rare exception.
[108] L’Economiste Français, Paris, October 5, 1912.
[109] Rule 150 reads as follows: “The committee will not fix a special settling day for bargains in shares or securities issued to the vendors, credited as full or partly paid, until six months after the date fixed for the special settlement in the shares or securities of the same class subscribed for by the public, but this does not necessarily apply to reorganizations or amalgamations of existing companies, or to cases where no public shares are issued for cash.”—Rules and Regulations of the Stock Exchange. London, June 3, 1911, pp. 64–5.
[110] These figures are taken from Mr. Hirst’s Chapter VIII on “The Creation of New Debt and Capital,” pp. 212–241.
[111] It should be said that at least a part of the decline in these securities had taken place before the Balkan scare became a reality. A foreknowledge of what was impending may have influenced the earlier decline; certainly the event itself accentuated and hastened it.
[112] London jobbers were, in a way, instrumental in checking the furious speculation in “rubbers” toward the culmination of the boom of 1909–10. Their absolute refusal to carry rubber shares for brokers, and their concerted insistence that such shares should be paid for in full on the ensuing account day, undoubtedly put the brakes on a furious speculation, and prevented many failures.
[113] The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 1912.
[114] On the New York Stock Exchange the minimum difference between prices is one eighth and splitting of this fraction is prohibited save in the case of “rights” to subscribe or similar instances.
[115] In the settling room on ticket day stocks that are not cleared pass by ticket from broker to broker in much the same way as that provided by the Clearing House.