ETHICS FOR INVESTORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 207, 26 May 1908, Page 6

ETHICS FOR INVESTORS.

ij. There are.some features of'the Elliott; case, which closed 1 yesterday , with > the sentencing;'of 'the 1 accused; to"a. term : of imprisonment that ,seems, very, .proper to {tho circumstances, ; : that call;for; sortie' notico.. By pleading), guilty ■ '"graver chargqs ..of fraud preferred, against Kmi, Elliott,'; rendered',it:'unnecessary-to dall .what would no doubt have" been a mass of. 'very;. instructiye. evidence., - Enough was disclosed during' the* hearing of,'the case, howeVer,, arid, there 'is also" enough that, is the subject of common report,, to make a -rather depressing commentary upon a certain laxity'of! morals in commercial'dealings amongst a certain section, of the community. The fact that the prisoner . obtained; large sums of money, by ..fraudulent 'meaii's is not of great importance,' and does, riot' ; of ! itself call for any/speeidl notice/ It is.: the .manner"'of his fraud that ,is; of public interest. He appears to have had little difficulty, even when hopelessly insolvent, in persuading people to hand" over to him large and small sums on the representation either that he would pay a bloatecl interest upon it, or would so invest it as to yield bloated and immediate Dividends. 'Like so many , men before him, he was the victim largely of other peoplo's cupidity, and to that extent he has a grievance against Society. He is not thereby ontitled to sympathy, of course, but surely some of the blame, not only for his; crime, but for, the losses of some of his clients,' must iri strict justice be allotted to those who made it so easy for him to go so far astray.

Until somebody collects the immense body of facts about the fraudulent pi'bmotcrse of what' American terseness has enabled us to call " get rich ; quick " schemes, there will always, wo- suppose, be people unable to resist the bait of extravagant and immediate gains from investments. But most of us have been surprised that Elliott should have found so many;people,in this city ready to listen to his speeious stories. It is a safe rule that one should suspect fraud in every/promise of huge dividends from any scheme that offers as well a safe se-: curity f6r; :the capital invested.. Such promises may prove genuine, but they arc the exception. . Many of the people . whose cupidity leads. them into these unsound, investments, are not quite innocently -credulous.; Very often they listento the broker even though they suspect thati.such a harvest as .is promised to them cannot be obtained by 1 methods that would bear t a too close investigation by the eye of ethical standards/ Such people cannot escape a share of responsibility on account of not actually carrying out .themselves the ; questionable operations from which they hope .to' derive a, huge profit. Mr. Justice Chapman touched this point, though briefly, in his summing-up in the case under notice. He might havo. used the occasion for the delivery of a homily upon tho necessity of a stricter code of commercial ethics than appears to be in force, just now. There are easily recognisablo limits tft the profits that can be yielded by legitimate business dealings. Anybody with money to invest, if lie has; any experience at'all, must know that if you investigate tho modern purse of Fortunatus you generally come upon a doubtful practice, or something worse. Consequently we have not a great deal of sympathy with-some of the victims of Elliott. The case may bear good fruit in making people a little more careful in the future, and a little less ready to dopai't ! from Brtfa and. well-triad lines in .making their investment*. ■ ■