2nd Dec.
We suggested in a short paragraph the other day that buyers of shares on time from Hongkong should be careful to; have the numbers of the shares they buy inserted in their contracts. If not, if anything goes wrong, they will find that their seller in Hongkong is in the position of "heads I win, tails you lose the contract they have accepted will be "null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever" in Hongkong, while the law here will hold them bound by their signature. here is believed to be a movement in Hongkong at present to keep down the price of shares in good concerns, and this is done by selling for forward delivery at little better than cash prices. lo do this, the operators have to "bear" the market; that is, to sell shares they have not got in the hope of buying in at lower rates. Of course, all this is as well known as the alphabet to many of our readers, but we write for the benefit of those who are not so well instructed, and who may be induced to buy by the temptation offered by the bears, without considering the effect of the new Hongkong Ordinance. This has been the course of share business in Hongkong for years past, and a strong endeavour has now been made to check it, and in their own interest those who buy shares from Hongkong should do all they can to back up this endeavour to put the business on a sounder footing. The Ordinance, course, does not interfere with those who sell for forward delivery shares which they have got, a perfectly legitimate business. Ihe intention is to check the disastrous gambling from which Hongkong is now suffering, and from which Shanghai suffered some eight or nine years ago. The following is the full text of the Ordinance in question, which has the merits of being brief, to the point, and intelligible
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.