GENERAL SUMMARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 288, 4 December 1895, Page 5

GENERAL SUMMARY.

THE MINING BOOM

FINANCIAL SITUATION IN PARIS,

Political events in Paris, though of great importance, were eclipsed on November 9th by financial incident* which are gradually aseuming the proportions of a catastrophe, according to recent terrains. The Paris Bouree was like a battlefield after a defeat. The number of bankine firms thab have closed their doors is very great, but the number of private persons who have been ruined is still greater. All classes of society have been carried away by the Sne The oldest actress at the Theatre FrancSse has beeu ruined. A former king has been obliged to pay §4 000,000 through a Jewish banker who fs a friend of his. A Smyrna speculator, who has riuedl the Bourse for five yeass, loses $25,000,000. The head of an establishment that is known everywhere, losea §15,000,000, and his eldest)

brother is so angry that he refuses to assist him in carrying forward his accounts on the Bourse to the end of the month.

On the morning of the 9th the Finance Minister summoned Mr Verneuel, a broker, and Baron Alphonse de Rotheckild to ask for their opinion?. These gentlemen declared thab the crisis was due to the fact bbat people had sold Turkish and French securities to buy mining shares, and when they wished to sell their mining shares they were unable to find purchasers, and the cra9h came.

On the 10th, Donmer, Minister of France, interviewed several leading financiers, and convened a meeting for the representatives of large houses holding credit accounts for the purpose of acting in concert and planning measures to restore confidence ab the Bourae.

The intimation of the Rothschilds on Saturday, 9th, prevented the panic at Paris from becoming positively disastrous. A despatch to tho " London Daily New 3 " from Berlin says that but for the assistance rendered by the Rothschilds on Saturday the 9th, the Bourse prices would have closed still woaker. The panic could not hare been worse on the eve ot a general European war.

According to the " Daily New's " correspondent, . the newspaper offices were thronged on Saturday night, 9th, with people who were clinging to the hope that Lord Salisbury's speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet that night in London might possibly put an end to the panic. At a meeting of the managers and directors of the principal bank 3on Monday, 11th, it waa resolved, in case the panic should continue, to institute collective action for the purpose of preventing the further fall of securities. Since Friday, Bbh, Credit Mobilier shares in Vienna fell 20 florins, Austrian State R.R. shares 40 florins, Turkish lottery bonds 22 florins, ditto tobacco shares 44 florins. Smce the memorable collapse of 1873 no such startling panic has occurred in Vienna. Dispatches, November 12th and 13th from London Bay the Stock Exchange was of a fluctuating nature, but during the afternoon it was decidedly better in both foreign and mining shares, owing to purchasers in influential quarters. American stocks were strong. Few brokers had to be helced. Business in Paris closed firm.

Stocks on the Berlin Bourse were very flat, on account of vague rumours from London of failures.