"BLACK SATURDAY."

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 284, 29 November 1912, Page 6

"BLACK SATURDAY."

WAR AND FINANCE.

WORLD EXCHANGES 1 STAGGERED. j

(Post Correspondent.) > > j LONDON, Oct. 16. ! I Somebody is making money % no ' \ doubt, in these days of uncertainty, ; but thousands are losing on all hands. , The heedless little gentlemen who say ; "Forward" and "Halt" to the armies !of the Balkans have brought disaster ! upon innocent homes in Germany, :in France, in England, and even in \ America. The man who is making j most out of th& whole thing is pro- • bably Mr Norman Angell, whose | theory of the interdependence of . } nations is thriving in the early snows ; of autumn.. . j BLACK SATURDAY. { Last Saturday the exchanges of' Eui-ope were in a state of panic. On . tlhe London Stock Exchange there was positive demoralisation, and Paris brokers had seen nothing like it since ; the outbreak of the war with Ger- ■ many in 1870. In their anxiety over ', the Balkan crisis (says the Daily j MaiD and the weak -state of the Continental bourses, London dealers brought down prices mercilessly, and , not a market escaped from the heavy : Collapse. Certainly never during the ; i present crisis have prices fallen so; heavily in so short a time, and it is' doubtful indeed whether even the; oldest members can remember a more j serious "slump" on a. Saturday morn- ' inff. ! In many markets, prices fluctuated ! recklessly -by points at a time, so I much that it became, a matter of 5 .extreme difficulty to follow them all. j London, moreover, could no longer < say with pride that, all the liquidation j was coming from the t Continent. ;' London and th.c provinces, as well as ■; Paris and Berlin, were turning out | stock on the market. Consols again, j fell heavily. \From 73^ they doroppedj. to 72 15-i6r--a new low record ,price for the security in its present form. Although Wall Street was closed in celebration of Columbus Day, American market dealers marked) down prices by dollars at a time, and \ .Canadian Pacifies were completelydemoralised. Amid scenes of the j wildest excitement they "slumped," } and ultimately closed with a loss of i 8k on the day andl 18 on the week, j Such favorites as Rio Tintos and De.} Beers were offered with tlie utmost] freedom. Heavy falls were likewise j suffered in the foreign bond market, j All the leading Russian securities showed losses of from 1$ to 2J points. Amoiig the war stocks themselves Turkish bonds of 1908 and Bulgarian 4-j^ per cents, dropped a couple of ( points each, while Bulgarian sixes fell | , a point. .1 It was noticeable that many foreign j bonds Quite outside the area of the j Balkan grottp were pressed for sale, j probably by small French investors, » who were frightened out of their! holdings by the fear of European! complications. . | The Stock Exchange is now once j more under control, though stocks j, have not by any means- recovered! themselves. The small investor, who ! is the real backbone of the market, j has reappeared, and a considerable amount of investment business has been done. v There must, of course, be further liquidations, but there is | j j not much probability of another j . panic. . I THE THRIFTY FRENCHMAN. | \ The unfortunate small 'investors^.' U who are such a potent evidence of the \ j thrift of France, were hard hit. > They hold many foreign bonds, and | the all-round panic struck them full. j The bourse was completely de- ! moralised. The collapse was worse J than .in .1882 and 1895. Feverish } liquidation continued in an almost \ unbroken stream. No one ventured to buy and offering fell flat, meeting with no response. When the market < opened1 a perfect avalanche of selling ! orders descended upon_ the brokers, ■ ! and there was demoralisation in all ] departments. No doubt prices were : a temptation to capitalists, great 3/n.d ' small, but the international situation . caused offers even at the very low •■; rates quoted to fall flat. Buying , s was ■ nil. The fact that the large ■ amount of French money invested in ■j Turkish and Balkan stocks belong ; chiefly to small capitalists aggravated the financial situation in Paris, which j had already been impaired by recent i excessive speculation. '.!■ Russian funds, in which millions of ; francs have been invested by humble ' Frenchmen, were quoted 3 francs ; lower than at the beginning of the ; day's business owing to the gloomy , telegrams foreshadowing the possii bilitv of Russia and Austria being i involved in a Balkan upheaval. | Servians and Turks "slumped, in ; sympathy, and Bulgarians were simply - unsaleable. Sensation al losses are also recorded! in the various • oil shares, which have recently reached inflated prices on the Paris market. ; The losses on the Paris Bourse up rto and including Saturday .were esfci- '"} mated at £16,000,000. In. spite of the panic, Paris got .; over the fortnightly liquidation quite [calmly. Realisations, had been carried • ' ; out on such a large scale during the : panic sales that there was little left j "j to liquidate on the Parquet. j ;j ' .IN GERMANY.' ' j i The Stock Exchanges of Berlin,; ! Frankfurt-on-Maine, and Hamburg 'j ■ were thro%vn into- a state of wildest ; I alarm. Investors declined to give J * the slightest credence to official and J semi-official assurances that the war ' WGuld be confined to Turkey and the j Ba.ikans, and dumped the shares on | the market in the terror-s,tricken con- j viction that Europe is on the brink of a conflagration. "The situation became ao critical the day," i 1 says the Daily Mail, "that the great ; ! German banks called a hasty confer- \ ence at the premises of the Deutsche ' Bank to adopt emergency ways and means. "When the conclave became i known tflhe Austrian Ambassador in i Berlin was closeted with the German ; Foreign Secretary. _ This sent fresh shivers down the spine of the nervous financial public. By closing time unprecedented declines had. been : recorded. The Bourse at St. Petersburg was also bady affected, and financial : journalists have got to the "oldest inhabitant" stage in their search for adeauate superlatives. One of them

says "the Berlin Bourse has passed* through days of terror such as thepresent* generation had iiever before experienced." Another "declares that the Bourse "has behind it a week like which but few are to be found in the history of banks and stock markets/ How much ground there is for this emphatic language will be recognised when it is stated that since last Monday shares of thirty wellknown industrial undertakings fell upwards of 25 per cent. At Vienna there was the sam» state of things, and the Hungarian Premier triedto check the downward rush by issuing a statement to tne effect that there was no question of Austria-Hungary intervening in the Balkan conflict and declaring that the Government only introduced the Supplementary Defence Estimates in view of the distant future. The situation became so serious that half an hour before the markets closed a Government*; official had a notice posted on the Exchange, board stating that the political situation had not become worse in any direction, declaring that there was no ground for further anxiety, and' denying the report concerning th» mobilisation of an army corps.

Wanganui is to very considerably benefit from the estate of the lat< Mrs W. H. Watt, whose demise oe curred a few days ago. When thi Avalanche was wrecked in the Englisl Channel, Miss Margaret Watt daughter of Mr W. H. Watt, wai among the victims. To perpetuati her memory in Wanganui, her fathei decided to found an institution, anc in hia will he directed that certaii land was to be set aside for thai purpose. Mr Watt died many yean ago, and his widow succeeded to tin estate. On the death ■■of the latter the estate has passed to a son, Mi James Watt, soficiifor, of Wangamu who ia to control it for twenty-out years. At the expiration of thai period, aji institution for children \U to be founded, to be known as tht Margaret Watt Orphans' Home. Th« property devoted to this worthy ob iect will, at the end of twenty-om years, be worth between £60,000 anc £100,000. The question of mixed bathing;,crop ped up in a speech at the opening oi the new salt water baths at Shelrj Beach* Auckland, on Saturday. Mj Ti W: Leys said that the baths woulc be open at certain hours for ladiei each day. He pointed out, however that the allocation of ladies' hours proposed meant that those who worked in offices and elsewhere could noi avail 'themselves'of- the opportunity tc make use of the baths. Why, there fore, he said, should men and womer not bathe together in. the- early morn ing, so long as proper rules in regarc to costume and decorum were obser ved, under, tho supervision of tm corporation's bathkeepers? lii: hi opinion, it was time that foolish moci modesty was done away with, and a long as the costumes were in accord anbe with regulations and the dressmj rooms apart, he saw no reason whj the bath should not be thrown open t| both sexes at certain specified hours Mr lieys's proposal was received wit] hearty applause by the 1500 peoplj present, the majority of whom- weii ' ladies,. ■ : '.''■ -:-- ■ "'; ' : "-■■■ The Canterbury Automobile Asso ciation the other night discussed witl Colonel Heard a proposal to form ai army motor reserve. Colonel Hear< explained the scheme as published',; thl tentative intention ;being that owneri of cars should help in staff tour§ anc manoeuvres, payments to be based OJ the rating of cars and the distance covered. The association resolved t< give the Government every assistance I m its power in the formation of th« -reserve: