October 24.
Iw spite of all that has been said of Shanghai rabber companier, it is by no menns certain that the worst has yet been heard. Three companies have had to adi publicly to more or less serious discrepancies bet ween the statements made in the prospectuses and the actual conditions of the estates. Others may be expected to come forward with similar admissions, for the "Straits Times," which must be credited with a sense of its' responsibility in making such a statement, announces that "the information which has reached us has compelled the conclusion that certain valuations made for Shanghai wore pure swindles, and that the persons who made should be in penal servitude." This journal instances two estates, in one of which for the purposes, prosumably, of a prospectus " raw stamps were stuck into the ground and described as one year rubber," while in the case of the other the manager, "'n good and honest man," found on his arrival at the property "that there was less than half the' acreage under rubber which had been represented, and what there was possessed little value." In all ti circumstances it is not to be wondered at that a general sense of insecurity obtains. among sharon holders, quite apart from mp in market quotations. A large number of purchasers of rubber shares were actuated by the reflexion that, whether prices soared or not, they were making a sound investment. Those people still have their shares, and in most cases can afford on the strength of the company's published prospectus to regard the present Prices of their stock with equanimity, not untinged with sympathy for those who are forced to sell. Such confidence, however, is not altogether proof against the statements: made in the " Straits Times " and the fact of one company after another
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.