The Express.
London, England, 1865-07-24 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDOX:1111/DGL

"ft-itoasow Itassiag, 21k. 69s.....Aftseasea. 18aa.
7KSI •-• M. 31. WA.

LONDON, MONDAY. JULY 24.

THE general Election is over. There is a little
affair to be decided to-day in North Leicestershire,
where three Conservatives are contending for two
seat. ; but, with this exception, all the elections
have taken place, and the complexion and character
of the new House of Commons is fixed. Saturday
was again a day of contests, but as one or two re-
turns from Irish counties are delayed, the balance
of victory cannot be stated with precision. the
Liberals have pined in South Derbyahire, where
Mr. Cotvima, their second candidate, has gained
the seat lately held by Mr. MUNDY. In North
Hants, Cork, Leitrim, Meath, and Antrim, the
changes that have taken place are merely per-
sonal, and leave the political character of the
representation unaffected. In West Norfolk,
however, the Liberals have suffered a loss, Mr.
Da GREY having won the seat of Mr. Beane-
TON GURDON. In King's County another
Liberal seat has also been lost. As
the elections have proceeded, we have published
day by day the names of the constituencies
in which either party has gained or lost,
and have kept the schedule before the public eye,
in order that the basis of the Liberal claim to
victory might be obvious to criticism. Taking
all the elections in England, Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales, we cannot claim now less than a gain of
twenty-five sesta to the Liberal cause as a result
of the general election. When the tangible facts
are of so pleasing a character, we may gladly leave
Mr. DISRAELI and his followers to revel in ima-
ginary successes and dreams of victories of which
the most that is hoped is that they may replace the
Opposition in its former impotence.

,TH'

claw
requirement of the Stock Ex ' rig/
would he completely unmarke ilijiot/
ficial result would be that the 'item ,
with much greater boldness do'
Repeatedly, when irregularities have been proved
.against the promoters of new schemes, the Com-
mittee have signified their sense of them by re-
fOldPir thelprivilege of quotation in the official list
--* mere half measure, which inflicts Rids
punishment upon the guilty parties, the attainment
of whose main objects is not at all interfered with.
It is to be apprehended that in not • few concerns,
where the justice of the case would have dictated
a complete refusal of a settling day, the Committee
have forborne to adopt that extreme yet salutary
stepout of consideration for the innooentsubscrillers
who might be left with unmarketable securi-
ties, yet bound to carry out their contract with the
projectors. On more than one occasion, when the
question of the appointment of a settling day has
been trembling in the balance in the Stook Ex-
change Committee-room, it is notorious that large
amounts of the subscribers' money have been
actually paid away and irrecoverable, so
that an adverse decision by the Com-
mittee would have simply let the guilty go free
and inflicted severe and unmerited punishment
upon the deceived shareholders. By the plan we
propose, every arrangement in connexion with
the launching of a public company would be
' strictly dependent upon the regularization of the
whole affair by the stamp of the Stock Exchange
Committee, the body best qualified to estimate
and pronounce upon the merits of the cane. The
consciousness that their project must live or die
according as the Committee decided would render
the directors and promoters of public companies
far more careful as to the means they adopted for
carrying out their plans. There would be fewer
attempts to force shares down the throat of a
reluctant public by the temptation of
fictitious premiums ; and the barefaced jugglery
wbi3h is involved in discrepancies between the
articles of association and the prospectus would no
longer be resorted to, simply because its inevitable
detection would entail a summary breaking up of
the whole project. It seems to us, we repeat,
that the adoption of such a measure ss that pro-
posed ought logically to precede any other attempts
to remedy the abuses complained of. The Com-
mittee might then, with full confidence in their
position, proceed to other measures, one of which
might be an enactment that • certain pro-
portion of the capital of a new project should be
bond fide subscribed for by the public to en-
title it to a settlement. At present the
only stipulation made by the rules of
the Stock Exchange refers to the privilege
of official quotation, and the want of • similar
provision as regards the settlement itself has
opened the door to numerous abuses. When •
new company issues its prospectus it does so with
a view to obtaining a certain amount of capital,
and if that capital is not obtained, or at least an
adequate proportion of it, it seems clear that, in
simple justice to the subscribers, the project should
be abandoned, the capital being insufficient to carry
out the purposes for which it was formed.
However, the Stock Exchange Committee ought to
be put in the best position for deciding in each
case, without bias or hesitation, whether the sub-
scriptions and allotment are of such a nature as to
hold out • reasonable prospect of a successful pro-
secution of the company's objects. We trust that,
in the interest alike of the public, of their own
body, and of that spirit of joint-stock enterprise
from which such great results are justly expected
in the future, the Stock Exchange Committee will
without delay givo their best consideration to the
means of remedying • system which threatens, if
left unchecked, to demoralise the financial commu-
nity, and to destroy one of the most powerful in-
struments of our progress.