COMMODITY SPECULATION

Evening Star, Issue 21950, 9 February 1935, Page 15

COMMODITY SPECULATION

THREATENING GOVERNMENT'S POLICY EFFECTIVE MEASURES PROPOSED Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, February 8. The ‘ Daily Herald ’ says that the heads of the “ big five ” banks, at the request of Mr Montagu Norman and the Treasury, have agreed to launch a big drive against commodity speculation. Mr Norman and the Treasury believe that the wave of gambling in commodities threatens the Government’s whole cheap money policy. -The ‘ Daily Herald ’ states that the banks have refused to aid pepper gamblers, who will be allowed to crash, and to-day brokers, the Stock Exchange, and commodity dealers will be informed that the banks propose to call in all loans unless it can be shown that the money advanced is being employed strictly for non-speculative business. PEPPER MARKET CRISIS LONDON, February 8. A dramatic development in the pepper market crisis is a petition for the compulsory wniding up of James and Shakespeare Ltd., of which Garabad Bishirgian is a director. Bishirgian is regarded as the leader of a syndicate which accumulated the pepper pool, though the firm were nominally metal brokers. Meanwhile the moratorium and the discussion by bankers and Mincing lane brokers continue. CAPITAL OF HALF A MILLION LONDON, February 8. (Received February 9, at 1.30 a.m.) James and Shakespeare Co. was converted into a public company at the erid of last year with a capital of £500,000, of which the greater part was issued.