THE DREDGING BOOM IN DUNEDIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4679, 16 August 1899, Page 3

THE DREDGING BOOM IN DUNEDIN.

HOW IT IS WORKED AND THE PEOPLE WHO WOBK IT. [Bt an Insider.]

Sundry people here whose opportunities enable them to spot the undesirable side of the dredging boom have begun to stir up the waters, and there is in consequence a lot of very ugly-looking mud on the surface. Those who are well in the swim, and making a good thing out of the boom. will tell you confidentially to pay no heed to those evilspoken ones : they are merely the envious outsiders who, because they have not a chance themselves of picking any of the plums out of the pudding, are determined on making things as unpleasant as they can for everybody else and deoryin/Sf and contemning whab they cannot gee themselves. Whether this is the motive that has inspired the attacks on certain dredging ventures in the Press lam somewhat doubtful. But what you see and read in the Press is nobbing compared to what never appears and I am afraid would not be allowed to appear there, and is only whispered on the Exchange or in those other places where those who are *' in the know " of things do most congregate. But this is of very little use to stop the flow of doubtful things on the market or pub an end to practices that are known to scores to be shady but that are yet hall-marked as sterling and clean by the names of men of position and influence— for a substantial consideration, of course. I think it was Pitt, or some other British statesman, who said, "Every man has his price." The remark is as true as Gospel. Go into the office of any broker here who knows his business and he will give you a list of 40 names any half of whioh you can secure for your prospectus at a consideration. The price varies, of course, according to position and j weight, and the higher you go m the ] erp.de the more securely will you hook the public and the wilder and blinder will be the run after shares in the " good thing " you are giviug away.

The flotation of a dredging company here I am assured is now as easy and simple an operation as falling off a log. This is largely the outcome of the extremelykeencompetitionwhich has grown up among the class whose business it is to shake up the public and get them to have a shot at something. Sir Robert Stout, I remember, said some years ago over on the West Coast that when a man failed at everything else he either became a schoolmaster or a commission broker. Well, the day has passed since then when anyone can become a schoolmaster, bub the door still remains invitingly open to the man who thinks he sees an opportunity for turning his talents to some advantage as a mining broker. The result is that the jingle of the guineas has brought them along with a rush. They are not members of 'Change, they belong to the pavement ; but they have nevertheless a standing of a kind, and they are frequently useful in gebbinp; through worts that the regular members of the brigade dare not touch without a certain amount of risk. They are generally found hovering on the flank of the regular army just as BashiBazouks are said to do, and they are said to be just as gentle and harmless in their ways. Some of them, lam assured, have found the business very lucrative, and the few among them who can " hustle " best are said to be making the income of a doctor in the first rank. Put the rottenest property that ever digraced a prospectus in the hands of one of the class 1 am referring to, agree to allow him to have a square bite out of the proceeds and he will give it such a start that it will be in prospectus form, neatly launched on the market, surrounded by a balo of names, every one of them representing an estimable citizen, a man of sound business or commercial reputation and, it may be — if the consideration is ample enough — a glorified pillar of one of our churches. Does he know anything about the thing he has put his name to and identified himself withP Absolutely nothing. From the generous manner in which he has been treated he sniffs something ugly about it, but he keeps his suspicions to himself and speaks to those who consult him. about it as " a really good thing, my dear sir ; a really good thing. As a friend, I say have a pop while there's time."

23 0w the whole of such a thing as this passes in its first stages through the bands of the pavement broker — that is the freelance who, thongh he has an office up some backstair and a, business card a foot square, is yet outside the pale of the man who has a name and a standing on 'Change and a reputation that it pays him to be particular about. Be scouts and " devils '* for the latter class, until, as he would say himself he 11 got his eyes peeled " and then he strikes out for himself. When he does so he is open for anything. He has no conscience, no principle, nothing restrains him except the terror of the law, and in these things the law is about as harmless as a kitten.

Now at the other- end of the string, unconscious accomplices, you have the experts who supply reports at a figure, and the other class, " practical miners who have been on the banks for forty years, and who have taken 50oz a week out of the ground with the most primitive appliances." When- the public get j imbed in between a push of this kind what can you expect? Escape is impossible. What iH to be done ? Where lies the remedy ?

I will leave the Hon. Thos. Fergus to answer. He has, ifc seems, a recipe in his pocket. Mr Fergus is on the directorate of the Hartley and Biley and he has also been on other directorates where, if there are no dividends, there are guineas. If there is any place out qf the pulpit where a man should feel \n a sermonising mood it is on the Hartley and Kiley directorate, and accordingly Mr, Fergus was in a righteous mood at the last meeting of that fortunate company and held forth on the prevailing iniquity of fleecing the public, Mr Fergus' medicine was a Mining Institute " which would protect the shareholders of tfttQ various companies from, being fleeoed." Well, the Mining Institute would have a considerable contract on hands, and I fear very much that as, according to Mr Fergus, it would consist of directors of dredging companies^ the position of the public instead of being better might be even worse. Why, the directors, or the material out of which they are formed, are a large part of the trouble just now. If they got in council together in a Mining Institute heaven knows what they mightn't do ! Mr Fergus' scheme is a figment of the brain and won't do nohow. But a Hartley and Riley $ireptor may be easily pardoned for looking down from, his golden perph and at; tempting something for the public who are still at the meroy of the pavement brokers, the promoters, experts, beachcombers and such easy-con sciened people whose time of joy and salvation is in. the present,