"MARKET, NOT MINE."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1312, 15 December 1911, Page 6

"MARKET, NOT MINE."

SHARE TRAFFIC AND BROKERS. At the meeting of the Ross Goldfields Reconstructed, Ltd., hold yesterday, the late chairman of directors, Dr. C. P. lvnight and Mr. Walter Nathan made some strong remarks regarding the traffic in mining shares by brokers. Dr. Knight said that a number of the shares which were held in Auckland were largely brokers' shares, the holders of ivhicli were not so much interested in the mine as in the market. There was a verv great danger to the public in brokers beiiig allowed to hold a largo number of shares. In England it was very different, because one knew when one dealt with a stock jobber that he \vas a stock jobber, but, in New Zealand, the shareholder was supposed to bo the guide and adviser of tlu- investing public, and not a trader m shares on his own account, or on behalf of his clients. If a broker did that kind of tiling, how could lie honestly advise neople with reference to shares in which ho was personallv interested? The time hod arrived when that sort of thing should not be allowed. So far as the Boss mine was concerned, if shareholders wanted a gamble, he thought that they should continue to work the mine by the present hvdro-clectric plant. There could not siirelv be a better gamble if that were wanted. Why, any child who liked to throw a stone through a wire over the (electric) line could stop the who c mine! Mr Walter Nathan thought that the shareholders had a splendid property in the Ross Goldfields if it. were worked pronerlv, bnt. if shareholders were going into" it with tho intention of working .the nublic, then there would be onlv ruination, and he w;ished to impress that fact upon the shareholders and the public, lie suggested that they should watch comin»" events very carefully. Mr G 1? Davis, as representing 14,000 shares and a large Auckland interest, renmliated any suggestion of trafficking in shares on the part of the holders whom he represented. They were Auckland business men of the highest repute, and were „ot in the company for the purposes to which Dr. Knight had re erred. Ho belicved that the mine could be worked by the oxisting hydro-electro plant. That and that only was the point on which they differed from tho retiring directors.