Wild Cats.

Otago Witness, Issue 1973, 12 September 1889, Page 12

Wild Cats.

Editor Witness,— Sir : You will well and faithfully discharge your duty to the public by putting a few of the present schemes through your editorial mill. The old feverish speculative mania is developing. High and low, principal and clerk — all are gambling for a rise. This is the very thing we wish to avoid. It injures our country and presents us in an unenviable light to outsiders. The reaction is bound to come, and then a host of unfortunates will be stranded by the receding waves. The knowing ones are all righb — they slip out in time. It is, I apprehend, an absolute act of dishonesty for promoters of a company to deliberately load their properties until they become certain non-payers. At a certain stage of loading, a concern that is good property at a price becomes an absolute swindle, and utterly loses any bona fides it ever possessed. Directors have a direct legal liability for their prospectus representations. It is a curious phase of human nature that a man who would scorn to sell an article of commerce by deliberate misrepresentations will readily sell his company's shares to an unsuspecting public, although he knows they are being deceived. And now a word to our consulting engineers. Any man with a reputation to lose, when employed by a party of promoters to report on a mine will do well to give a calm and impartial report of facts within his knowledge, and avoid all conjectures. We see far too much of wild enthusiasm and rosy-coloured sentences ; a too great eagerness to lend assistance in baiting the trap for the public. If I was an investor I would look very askance at high falutin reports by over-sanguine engineers. — I am, &c, ber 6. V

Septem!

ICTORIES.