ORGY OF SPECULATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20491, 17 February 1930, Page 11

ORGY OF SPECULATION.

THE FEVER IN .CANADA*

OIL AND MINE SCRIP,

A THREE-YEAR-OLD STORY*

[from our own correspondent.!

VANCOUVER. Jan. 22.

The story of the stock speculation in Canada, which has haxl its sequel in recent charges against stockbrokers, goes back three years to the time when Calgary oil and British Columbia mines began to be boomed by the stock operators. The fever swept the country from Ontario to the Pacific. Hardly v a stenographer or a girl in a department store but was holding a small parcel of oil. or mine scrip. Peoplo mortgaged their houses to get in while the stocks were beginning to soar.

What happened in Vancouver is a reflex of circumstances in every city and town, east and west. Brokers' offices sprang up like mushrooms overnight. In this city there must be at least 30 such offices, in each of which a huge board, operated by attendants with head-piece phones, chalks up with astonishing rapidity the momentary changes of the leading Canadian and American stocks. The Wall Street fever spread north and west and caught the people's attention to the exclusion of everything elso. Everyone talked stocks. Newspaper offices were besieged with telephone calls during the whole of the day and night, asking whether this or that well was "coming in." Brokers opened at five in the morning, which corresponded with eight o'clock in New York, when the brokers began work there. Private wires, direct to Wall Street, were leased by the majority of these houses. Both the Governments of British Columbia and Alberta took action to warn the people against putting fictitious values on mines and oil-bearing properties. In one case the Government inspected one of these booming properties and officially announced that there was no practical development of the mine likely. Calgary "was described as capable of supplying the oil needs of the universe for centuries to come and so on. v The fever passed the crisis before the Wall StTeet crash, - thanks to repeated warnings and disciplinary action ' taken by the Canadian banks. But fortunes had already been made by those.who were wise enough.to collect profits while themarket was still rising. Speculation still went on, according to the gospel that, where one can make profit, another can. The spring-cleaning is on. It will take months to clear up. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, for fortunes .are even now being made by shrewd speculators while the new boom is on. Meantime, there is a growing feeling of gratitude to the Government of Alberta for having started the ball rolling. It has set its hand to the plough, and four Provinces are lending their help. There will be much talk, much investigation, much litigation, probably much prosecution and, incidentally, „much grist to the lawyers' mill. But out of it all, one figure emerges stately and triumphant—Alberta, Cinderella of the Canadian Provinces.