MAD SPECULATION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 31, 31 October 1932, Page 6

MAD SPECULATION

Americans in Boom Period PROCESS NOW REVERSED Dominion Special Service. Auckland, Oct. 27. Described on the list of distinguished passengers as “Capitalist, of San Francisco, on a pleasure trip,” Mr. E. L. Malsbary arrived by the Monterey. He spoke of the “mad wave of speculation” that swept over the United States before the boom broke, and remarked that he could not understand the iniuds of the speculators who bought stocks with a total disregard, of their dividend-payiug capacity. All that the speculator had in mind was to buy to sell, and many of the shares purchased were not returning even 1 per cent. “You do see something for your money when you back a horse,” he said with a smile, “but thousands of people who gambled on the stock market got nothing for their investments. Many of these people were ordinary workers and tradesmen w’ho were obsessed with the idea that there was money in anything they bought on the Stock Exchange.” Referring to real estate, Mr. Malsbary said farms and city lots were in the process of “de-booming.” Many people had bought farms at high prices when produce was at the peak, and had suffered in consequence. “It is not a local failing,” he said,' “but a worldwide happening.” In a recent trip through the United States he had had a conversation with a man ou the land who was a bit of a philosopher. “Hard times have not come,” was Ills comment, “but easy times have gone.” Mr. Malsbary stated that be was a Republican, and had always voted that way, and he thought that it was unfair to blame Mr. Hoover for the depression. Some of the Australian States had had Labour Governments, but that had not stopped the depression. No one set of statesmen or politicians was to blame for the aftermath of the war.