GAMBLED AND LOST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 206, 18 August 1911, Page 3

GAMBLED AND LOST.

RUBBER BOOM

RAILWAY DIRECTOR S SPECULATION.

Melbourne. Aug. 11

In a letter to a Melbourne resident, an officer at present travelling in the Far East says:— “There must be lots of money in Shanghai, but at present they are suffering from depression after the rubber boom. The whole place seems to have plunged wildly in rubber investments, men borrowing money fiom anywhere to invest Most of it seems to have been unwisely placed, with the result that the.v have lost their spare capital, and many are saddled with debts that will take a lifetime to clear, The Chinese seem to have plunged heavily, not only the merchants in Shanghai, but people up country sent down their savings for investment. Now the money has vanished, banks have failed by’ the score, and industrial works have gone bankrupt. The losses can be reckoned in millions, and the country people are now convinced that European finance is another word for swindling

“Of course, Chinese crookedness isresponsiblefor some of the losses. For instance, at Kiukiang, a city I passed on the Yangtse, there is a small railway junder Chinese control. The company had subscribed a considerable sum. The directors thought it was a good chance for a flutter when the rubber boom came along. They* would clear a nice profit and still have the subscribed capital for the railway. So they invested the raihva.y money, but the expected profits were never realised, and the railway is now bankrupt.”