ACCUMULATION OF VAST FORTUNES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3670, 19 April 1883, Page 4

ACCUMULATION OF VAST FORTUNES.

Of enormous riches, 3lr Vauderbilt, in the few years that have elapscrl wince the dealh of'his father, lias turned liis hundred millions of inheritance into four times that sum. mid this vast fortune produces as much annual revenue as would double that nniuimt invested in the public funds of Europe. The schoolboy is tautrht that Ciesar's speculations in Gaul during several years amounted to ten millions of our present money. Even the lesser of our two great luminaries, 3lv Gould, i - as made more than that in six months by adroit manipulation of the stock market. Monopolies and ring's are constantly being , formed— and successfully—to reduce yet further the area in which the influence of an open market can he felt. Already coal, oil, bread, meat, m;tt'hes, yas, .-iiul nearly all tlie other staple necessaries of life pay toll t<; such combination. During the last mouth two more articles have- been added to the list fish and india-rubber. The latter is a curious instance of the power of evil to propoxate itself over a constant widening realm. The supply of manufactured rubber articles lias long been regulated by a clo:-e union of two or three score of established producers. They have, however, tempered c-xtorfion with decency -owing mainly to the unwieldy size of the ring—and have only made us pay 10 and '20 per cent above the natural price. The raw rubber has been collected in Central and Soulh America, and has passed through the hands of a few uTC-at American and English houses. These latter conceived the idea of "corner" -for a year or two at any rate —of the raw rubber market. ] .Living secured all the possible sources of supply, they have advanced the price more than 50 per cent., and the manufacturers, after consultation, have reluctantly consented to pay as required. .But the latter talk now of establishing in the near future their own channels of .supply, and that, done we shall, without doubt, see the present '■corner" created into the dignity of a permanent monopoly.