COMMERCIAL BUCCANEERING.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 277, 23 March 1889, Page 2

COMMERCIAL BUCCANEERING.

Thebe have been so many telegraphic messages published lately with regard to the Comptoir d’Esoompte and the copper market that a good many readers are bewildered as to what it all means. Our Sydney correspondent supplies an excellent account, though the shares have gone down even lower than he anticipated when writing his letter Copper mining companies have received a severe blow by the collapse of the copper syndicate, a collapse which has long been expected and has come at last. Nyinagee which were selling at 20s not so very lonf ago are now going begging at less than hair the price. Of course one is sorry for the blow which is being given to a very important branch of colonial mining enterprise. But the collapse was inevitable sooner or later, the sooner, the less harm done. The history of the syndicate is simple. A little ring of French speculators, inflated by the success of a little “corner” which they had worked in Chili bars, conceived the truly Gallic idea of cornering the whole of the world's supply of copper, and selling it at their own price. Copper had previously been selling at £4O per ton. They became buyers at £65, and made contracts with all the principal mines to take the whole of their output at this figure or somewhere near it. The operation would have been impossible without very solid financial support, but they managed to win over the bank manager of the great Comptoir d’Esoompte (French of course). Having thus got command of the necessary millions they began to veer and haul merrily. Having raised the price to a satisfactory figure they found themselves compelled to buy much more copper , than they had calculated upon. Existing mines increased their output all they were able. Mines which had been shutdown got to work again withall speed, and fresh ones were opened in all directions. Still all customers were compelled to buy from the syndicate, who of course charged their own price. But the price they charged proved a terrible check to consumption. The stocks of copper, purchased at a high rate, began to accumulate and at the same time the necessity for making constantly increasing purchases in order to maintain the value of that already secured became more and more pressing. The syndicate had taken the copper market on its shoulders, and the Comptoir d’Esoompte, like the tortoise in the Indian fable, sustained the syndicate. As long as its funds lasted the cash was loyally forthcoming. The copper men thought it was going to last for ever, and they silenced croakers by flourishing the Comptoir d’Escompte in their faces. But not even the Comptoir d'Esoompte can do impossibilities. The manager gradually awoke to the ruinous and hopeless position in which he had placed the institution. By and by came a cable which stated that he had committed suicide, preferring to face the terrors of the world to come rather than carry his self-imposed load any further. Down came the price of copper from £BO to £5O, and it is feared that unless another “ corner ” is formed to moderate the “ smash ” it will yet go lower than it has done since the memory of man. This is briefly, the history of one of the most stupendous instance! ot commercial buccaneering recorded in history. But there is reason to tear that what has been attempted in. copper may yet be accomplished in other commodities ot much greater importance to the welfareot the masses. The shortsightedness which refuses to influence prices in the shortest degree for the public good, but which permits unscrupulous wholesale piracy of this kind without making any effort to stop it, is I take it a kind of insanity or imbecility which specially afflicts the genua “ statesman.”