THE RUBBER BOOM 61 



profit. The game was played with great success by 

 many people for several weeks. Two or three examples 

 will show you in plain figures how fortune-making was 

 possible. 



At the beginning of the boom, the value of shares 

 in a certain rubber company was 19s. each ; during the 

 boom the great demand for these shares forced their 

 exchange price up to 70s. each. Suppose, therefore, 

 someone had bought 4,000 of them at the 19s. price; 

 if he was lucky enough, or smart enough, to sell them 

 when they were fetching 70s. each, he would clear, 

 roughly, about £10,000, after paying commission to 

 a member of the Stock Exchange whom he had to employ 

 to carry out the deal for him. Again, on a certain night 

 shares in another company were selling at 27s. each. 

 The next morning some favourable remarks about this 

 company's rubber plantations appeared in the news- 

 papers, and so anxious were people to get shares in 

 the concern that they at once offered 35s. apiece 

 for them. Therefore, people who had bought these 

 shares during the previous afternoon had the chance 

 of selling them at a profit of 8s. apiece within a few 

 hours. 



Under ordinary conditions, people buy shares with 

 a view to holding them, and receiving a proportion of 

 the profits made by the enterprise in which they have 

 taken a partnership. During the Rubber Boom, no 

 one bought shares with this idea. The game, as I have 

 told you, was to buy at to-day's price, utterly regardless 

 of whether it was a fancy figure, and trust to luck that 

 very soon there would be some other people so anxious 

 to get the shares that they would be willing to give a 

 much bigger price for them. 



