The Express.
London, England, 1866-03-12 00:00:00

THE REFORM BILL

A DOUBLE NUMBER

Or TUK

"EX PRESS"
Will be published TO-MORROW, containing a
;verbatim report of the Speech of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer in introducing the Reform Bill of
the Government, together with the discussion
thereupon, the comments and criticisms of the
Daily Journals, and all the News of the day np
to the hour of going to press.

12 o'olo*k.

most be at the office not later they

LONDON. MONDAY. MARCH 12.

Tams is some danger that the break-up of the
Joint Stock Discount Company may be attended
with injurious consequences to a far larger
class than those persons who are interested
in it as shareholders or creditors. The public, it is
notations, habitually act too much upon mere im-
pulse in their transactions in the Stock Exchange,
whether as regards investments or sales. For
months or even years together they will go on
bidding eagerly against one another for shares in
some sort of investment which suits their taste at
the• time, and many cases are on record in which
the moat extraordinary prices and the most ex-
travagant premiums have been paid by reason sim-
ply
of the excessive competition of buyers. In
course of time a check comes ; perhaps one of the
imitative schemes which have sprung out of the
inordinate demand oomes with a crash to the,
ground ; perhaps a company, who profess
,to carry on business simply as discounters
of legitimate commercial paper travel far out of
their province into speculative " financing" upon
a prodigal scale, with the result naturally to be ex-
pected. Then the alarm and disgust of the public
are probably proportionate to the excessive favour
which they had previously ettended to new com-
•psnies, and a multitude of persons, who had here-
tofore been considered steady investors, appear as
blind sellers. Property of undoubted value, well
administered, and having nothing whatever in com-
mon with the speculative schemes which have been I
the cause of the consternation, is literally sacrificed.
To blame the Stock Exchange, as some do,
and to inveigh against its members, as though
they were the principal agents in producing depre-
ciation, and the sole gainers, where so many other
people lose, is idle in the extreme. There are, of
course, both within the Stook Exchange and
amongst the public, a large number of what nay
be termed merely superficial speculators, who closely
watch and endeavour to rush in advance of the
stream of events. These are always, as the came
may be, the most rabid sellers or the most sanguine
buyers, and they are occasionally instrumental in
pushing the movement of prices to its extremist I
point. But this class, after all, has little
power, nor has the entire Stock Exchange
much more. The regulation of prices rests
practically in the halide of the general public. If
the public become sellers en mane in simple
fright, the Stock Exchange dealers, who have
neither the means nor, probably, the disposition
to take the varied mass of stock flung suddenly
upon them, must of course put prices down. The
remedial operation of this is usually twofold—
holders become less inclined to Bell as prices fall,
and fresh buyers of a stronger class are attracted.
Occasionally, however—and there are indications
even now that this point has been reached—the
unreasoning alarm is so general that losses which
are absolutely needless become widely diffused. It
teems to be a fitting moment Ifor calm reflection.
lf a speculative "discount" company fails, the
area of the disaster,' after all, is circumscribed,
and shrewed investors will do best by assuming that
the exposure of directors' shortcomings is more
likely, in the long run, to benefit than to damage
the joint stock principle ; for, if the great body of
shareholders in public companies are possessed of
common sense, they will take steps, after a scandal
of this sort, so to tie up the hands of directors and
managers that its repetition shall be rendered less
easy. After all, if two or three companies fail dis-
astrously, what is the amount of loss compared
with the enormous benefits and gains which have
been conferred upon the community by the joist
dock principle ? Where one bank has in-
volved its shareholders in loss, how many
have proved sources of wealth to all coo-1
corned ? Financial companies naturally suffer 1
to some extent from the mere fact of their
being as yet experimental in their character ; but
mere youth, if a fault, is one which ovary year