GETTING RICH QUICK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 599, 2 August 1933, Page 7

GETTING RICH QUICK

FRENZIED HOPES OF BOOMS AND THEIR ULTIMATE AFTERMATH. POPULAR CREDULITY. I suggest we put into the curriculum of every high school and college an old book which hasj recently been re-issued. It was written by Charles Mackay, LL.D., and is entitled "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." Mr. Bernard M. Baruch suggested its republication. He says that the perusal of it years ago saved him "millions of dollars," stated a writer in the New York Herald Tribune last month. The first two chapters deal in fascinating fashion with the Mississippi scheme ofJohn Jaw, which almost wrecked Prance, and with. the South f Sea Bubble that sh'ook England to her Ieconomic foundations in the same century. Paragraph by para.graph it is the story of our own Florida boom, tbe story of our own stock market in 192829. For instance: — "Exchange Alley (stock market) was in a fever of exeitement. The company 's stock, which had been at a hundred and thirty the previous da.y, gradually rose to three hundred, and then continued to rise with" astonishing rapidity during the whole time g that the bill (chartering the South Sea | Company) was under discussion. Mr. S Walpole was almost the only statesB man who spoke out loudly against it. 8 It eountenanced, he said, "the danger. I ous practice of stock-jobbing, and 8 would divert the genius of the nation 9 from trade and industry. It would I hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the § unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for the prospect of imaginary wealth. ... If it failed, which he was convinced it would, the result would bring general discontent and ruin upon the country. Such would be the delusion that when the evil day came, as come it would, the people would start as I from a dream, and ask themselves if j these things could have been true. All L his eloquence was in vain." Hundreds of different companies were launched during the frenzied ; days of the Bubble. Here are the names of a few: | "For making looking-glasses, coachI glasses, etc. Capital two millions. 8 "For carrying on a trade in th'e H River Oronoko. "For insuring of horses. Capital two millions. "For furnishing funerals to any part of Great Britain." Mad Rush for Stock. People trampled each other in Fxchange Alley t0 snap up the stock in these and similar companies. The final absurdity was reached when a practical mindecf gentleman an-nounced tjhat he would receive subscriptions for shares in a company "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage; but nohody to know wh'at it is." This individual opened his office a.t ten o'clock one morning, received £2000 in cash before three o'clock, closed the office and skipped to the Continent. He seems to have been about the only one who made money in the hooni and kept it. Reading these chapters makes me feel a little foolish. I, also, have some shares in companies "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage; but nohody to kno^ wh'at it is." I propose to paste them together and make attractive eovers for two copies of DrMackay's hook — one for each of my sons. The parallel does not end with the I bursting of the boom; it continues 1 through the bitter period of deflation, 1 investigation and recovery. « Bitter Trials of Deflation. | Do you imagine, for example, that jj "hoarding" is a new phenomenon? | Read these sentences: | "The first slight alarm was occa1 sioned early in 1720. The Prince de 1 Conti, offended that Law should have | denied him fresh shares in India stock, 1 at his own price, sent to his bank to ^ demand payment in specie of so enor- | mous a quantity of notes that three j waggons were required for its trans1 port. Law complained to the regent, j and urged on his attention the h'arm 1 that would be done if such an example | found many imitators. The regent was hut too well aware of it, and sending for the Prince de Conti, ordered him, under penalty of his high displeasure, to refund the hank twothirds of the specie which he had with- | drawn from it. ._ . Notwithstandi ing every effort, the precious metals continued t0 he conveyed to England j and Holland." ; Do you suppose that the emergency I measures enacted at Washington in i recent weeks ara unprecedented? [ When the Tulipomania collapsed in | Holland the bewildered tulip-growers, | after holding "puhlic meetings to de- ! vise what measures were hest to bo ! taken to restore public credit . . . ! generally agreed that deputies should ■ he sent from all parts of Amsterdam | to consult with the Government upon some remedy." 1 It's all happened so many times before. Again and again — every detail. Including the final chapter. John Law in Paris was almost a god until his scheme collapsed. Men fought for introductions to him; titled women were willing to make any sacrifice for his favour. After the collapse ■every man and woman cried out for his hlood. In England, when the Bubble burst, Parliament hastened to appoint investigating committees, and Lord Stanhope proclaimed that "every farthing possessed hy the criminals (the recent Teaders' and 'Empire huilders') ought to be confiscated to make good the public losses." I hold no brief for those who, durj jng our own boom, should have led us wisely and, instead, betrayed us by 1 their greed. j I merely draw attention to the fact | that we are exactly like our ancestors. | As Dr. Mackay points out: — "Nohody : hlamed the credulity and avarice of the people — the degrading lust of ! gain, which had swallowed up every | nobler quality in the national chaxacter, or the inf atua'tion which had made I the multitude run their heads with I such frantic eagern'ess into the net | held out for them by scheming projectors." We, th'e yictims, never assess any of

| the fault against ourselves. We merej ly turn on those whom we have so ' recently been acclaiming, and raise the cry of "Crucify!"