A BOOM ON THE RAND.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 590, 15 December 1908, Page 7

A BOOM ON THE RAND.

According to the Johannesburg correspondent of the Daily Mail, there are all the signs of another "boom" on the Rand. "The boom came in silently," he says. "No one noted its arrival. But euldenly you noticed that stock-brokers, who used to walk into town every morning, for exercise, of course, were beginning to ride in tramway cars, and that some reckless individuals occasionally took a cab. And at last the boom was officially recognised. It appeared on the contents bills of the newspapers. The share market report, which for months had languished ou some obscure page, was once more given a place among the cable news and tho 'horrors. ' The theatres became crowded, the popping of champagne corks sounded in hotels which had be come accustomed to serving sixpenny beors instead of shilling whiskies." Business is "looking up," and there are fewer unemployed clerks in Johannesburg than was the case a month or two ago. There is life in the Stock Exchange, too. A tailor who bought a bundle of 2000 shares at Is Id each finds them worth nearly £1 a piece now. Plenty of money seems to be available lor market operations, money from Europe, attracted, no doubt, by the low prices of promising shares, and hoarded money from the country districts. State loans are being floated locally, tho gold output steadily increases, dividends are being paid regularly, and there is a feeling of confidence abroad. The "slump" in diamonds seems to have ended, too, and perhaps the rival diamond companies have come to an understanding. One of tho results of returning activity in the share market is that new inventions for cheapenirg the extraction of gold are being "pushed," and syndicates to float them seem to be formed very rgadily. The correspondent tells us that a "solar syndicate" has been formed to place on the market an invention to utilise concentrated sunrays in the extraction of metal from ores. Speculation is not as brisk as it used to bo in the good times, but the gambling spirit is undoubtedly taking hold of the communit again.