April i. 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



241 



Mincing Lane and the Rubber Share Market. 



WHEX the boom in rubber shares began Mincing Lane saw 

 its opportunity and took it. Produce brokers were not 

 wholly inexperienced in the business of buying and sell- 

 ing shares for clients. For many years some of the principal tea 

 houses have dealt in shares of tea companies. Their operations 

 were never very numerous, but they have served as an example in 

 the evolution of the rubber market. As soon as rubber flotations 

 began some of the rubber houses found that their connection 

 with producers, consumers and the rubber world in general made 

 it convenient for them to act as intermediaries between buyers 

 and sellers, not only of the produce but of shares in the pro- 

 ducing companies also. As the boom has grown. their business in 

 shares has grown with it. The brokers most prominently con- 

 cerned now have regtjja-r share departments in their offices, which 

 have become of as much importance to them as their business in 

 rubber itself. 



When a number of dealers in one article ya{]ier together to 

 buy and sell from each other a market is established, and some 

 organization soon grows up to regulate the course of dealing 

 upon it. The rubber share brokers of Mincing Lane have con- 

 structed such an organization to serve their needs, or rather, an 

 organization has grown up itself out of their customary business 

 methods. A little local stock exchange has come into existence. 

 Its nature and conditions are of some general interest, because 

 they show how a stock market is conducted which has no his- 

 torical or legal ties, and is free to carry on business as it pleases. 

 The local habitation of the Mincing Lane market is in a cor- 

 ner of the Commercial Sale Rooms. It meets twice a day. morn- 



•From London Economist. March 5, 1910. 



ing and afternoon, for half an hour or so, and it is frequented 

 by those brokers who have a rubber share department as a regu- 

 lar branch of their business. An association has been formed, 

 the Mincing Lane Tea and Rubber Share Brokers' Association, 

 wdiich has some seven or eight members, but time has not yet 

 been found to give it any rules. The procedure of the market is 

 adapted from that of a "call" in a produce market. Each broker 

 on the market takes his turn in reading over the list of shares 

 and yesterday's prices. If anyone present has dealt since the last 

 call at a price different from that read he corrects the price 

 accordingly. Dealings in each share take place as its name is 

 read out, and if they result in any rise or fall the new price is 

 recorded. When the call is finished there is some miscellaneous 

 dealing, and the gathering is over till the next time. The greater 

 part of the business of the market is, of course, transacted not at 

 the "calls," but from office to office during the day. The "call" 

 serves only to provide an opportunity of balancing transactions, 

 of executing commissions for which time or opportunity has 

 failed, and of making up an official price list as the basis of future 

 transactions. 



The chief difference between such methods of business and 

 those of the Stock Exchange is that Mincing Lane has no jobbers. 

 Dealing takes place straight from broker to broker. There is no 

 one whose business it is to make a price either way, and to take 

 anything he is given. When a broker opens negotiations at the 

 call he begins "Anything in so-and-so?" but if there is no imme- 

 diate response he proceeds at once to declare whether he is a 

 buyer or seller and at what price. The whole working of the 

 market depends, therefore, on the knowledge of the broker as 





IX THE RUBBER MARKET, AT THE LONDOX STOCK EXCHAXG.E, DURIXG THE GREAT RUSH FOR SHARES. 

 [Reduced from a two-page sketch by S. Begg in The Illustrated London News of March 5.] 



