Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-07-02
CHRISIIANA HAS
 PROSPERITY AS
 RESULT OF WAR
Norway Now Has Largest Merchant Marine of Any.
 Country in World, '

J.IIlco. oil UDuliuiuS anu 'Ao freights cause the boom, while the difficulty of securing supplies from abroad and the failure of ordinary wages to fit the prevailing high prices cause the hard times.
 People who have shares in ships and the various shipbuilding con cerns are having everything their own way. Many persons who have held stock Which paid no'hing at all or else very nominal dividends of from three to five per cent a year for many years, now have, in some cases, received cash dividends of from twenty fifty to fifty per cent.
 One night rot long ago there was excitement down around the Grand
 hotel on the main boulevard of Karl Johans grade. Some new stock had been issued or the install 'ment basis. whereby purchaser paid about One third down and agreed to pay the other two-th.rdS as the money was needed by the companie: concerned. The stock, one-third paid for. began to rise in value as general freight rates advanced, but as the companies be- san calling fer additional payments, many owners found themselves con- holdings in order to pay obligations on the remainder. The result was conflict between rising prices on the one. hand and forced sales on the other. All sorts of people were buy ing and selling, from news boys up; crowds collecting on the streets and in the Hobbies of the hotels in order to close their trasactions. However the values of this kind of paper after the war is over is prob.ematical, for with vessels selling at about five times their intrinsic values based On 1914 prices, it may be inferred that general decline will occur. However many conservative people here say that freight rates will continue to be high for long time after the war is ended and that present "ates will not decline to any great extent.
 4 Messenger Boy Rich.
 Dealing in stocks or shares here they call "jobbing," pronounced "yob- bing" and nearly every one is "yob- hing" The manager of a big Anglo Norwegian shipping concern was called up by telephone one day by a broker who wanted to learn something of the credit of certain employe who had obligations amounting to about 3O,OOO crowns coming due.
 "Why," said the manager, you don't mean Karl, our messenger boy. do you? Hold the phone g. minute. say Karl come here Are you the one this man is talking about? He says you owe 30,00O crowns on some are 'yobbing' do you?"
 "Why, yes sir, that's me- answered Karl. Well how are you going to raise 30,0O0 crowns to pay the obliga-' tions." "Why I have t right here," replied Karl. and taking T bank book out of his pocket, he showed the as- tonished manager a balance of some 45,00O crowns. "The 3O,C00 is not due till tomorrow and I have not yet bsen around there, but you may tell hims I will pay it all right"
 The way these young fellows g)t their start is about as follows; An advertisement appears in the daily papers inviting the public to subscr be to certain issue of stock. A young clerk, with barely enough cash to pay for the necessary postage stamp, writes and says he wants hundred shares. Maybe the issue is oversub scribed so he receives reply to the effect that. according to the pro rata, he is entitled to fifty shares of the hundred requested and is invited to settle the account at par within five days As the issue iA over sub scribed it is not difficult for the hclder of this letter to sell his right to fifty shares at anywheres from 1O2 to 105 per share. He does this. So with the par value of the shares at five hundred crowns each. he pockets a neat profit of anywhere from five hundred to twelve hundred and fifty crowns This was about four months ago. Subscribers now the face value of the number Of shares requested; otherwise the letter or application will not be considered.
 Merchant Marine Largest.
 1t is reported that millionaire ship owners in Bergen, Norways big ship ping center, have increased since the war began. from six or seven to over forty and that Norway now has the largest merchant marine of any coun- try in the world Before the war England was her only rival in this respect.
 The hard times talk comes from the people who either have not got ten in on the shipping deals or per haps got in on the wrong side of the upward tendency in the prices of stocks there have been enough fluc- tuaticns to cause many people to lose heavily. However, prices of the nec- essities of life are rising and good many thing cannot be secured at any price. Salaries and wages have not kept up with the increased cost of foodstutfs. Taxes are high and may be higher. and with Norwav at least partially moh!lized, some of the pro- ductive earning power of the country is, for the time being, eliminated.
 It should be remembered that pe- e nf the