SPECULATORS.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1929, Page 2

SPECULATORS.

“When it comes down to actual investments the public are too much like sheep. They see the reports that profits arc being made in some specific undertaking, and if a rival comes into the field they think it also must achieve equal success at once.” said Sir Edwin Stockton, in a recent speech. “ Booms arc invariably disastrous to any industry in which they occur, and I am sorry to say there is a good deal of justice in the assertion that shares in many concerns are bought very recklessly, often on the strength of extremely doubtful estimates of profits to come. Many of these estimates may be genuine enough, hut the difficulties encountered in trying to establish new industries are often overpowering. “If booms are disastrous, inflated dividends are almost as had. They have many prejudicial effects, because they lend the publi*-. in the first place, to form an entirely erroneous idea ol the financial stability of the enterprise. As everyone knows, there are certain forms of activity in which huge profits fluctuate with equally huge losses. How then can this tendency of rash and wasteful speculation be curbed? Not by any State action—in that way lies disaster. It is by education, by plain speaking of public men, by the use of available media of publicity, and by the common action of all persons who have at heart the financial well-being of the country.”