258 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



the operations of bucket shops the very operations, in a large 

 measure, that were formerly carried on upon the boards of 

 trade. This opposition is merely an effort to regain that part 

 of their business which has attached to it the bulk of the evils 

 of all their business. Brokers "bucket" orders on their own 

 account, a practice which the exchanges endeavor to stop. 



Manipulations in General. Speculation depends upon price 

 fluctuations, but price fluctuations are decreasing. There is 

 then the tendency to resort to all possible "manipulations" in 

 order to cause abnormal fluctuations in price. Fraudulent and 

 immoral means are often utilized in such efforts. In the produce 

 market price can be influenced by the operator in only two ways. 

 "He must either buy or sell the commodity himself, or he 

 must persuade others to buy or sell." By such operations, 

 however, a speculator with sufficient capital may bring about a 

 rise or fall in price, but it seems to require unexpected crop 

 conditions favorable to the manipulation in order to bring 

 success. 



Legal Restraints. The feeling against speculation in the 

 United States has been strongest when prices were depressed. 

 In the early nineties it resulted in the introduction of several 

 "anti-option" bills in congress. None of them became a law, 

 but two of them passed one branch of congress, and there was 

 much public sympathy in support of the measures. Much 

 earlier some of the state legislatures made an effort to stop 

 trading in futures. Some very stringent laws were passed by 

 various states during the eighties. They generally considered 

 short selling and trading on margins as gambling. The ten- 

 dency to legislate in this direction seems to have lessened, and 

 some of the statutes which were passed were soon repealed. 



Speculation in Foreign Countries. Sales of grain before it 

 was threshed were forbidden in England in 1357, and in the 

 Hanse cities in 1417. Time dealings in grain were forbidden in 

 Antwerp in 1698. During the first half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, practices similar to those of the modern speculative mar- 

 ket were common in the European grain trade. The system did 

 not become widely developed, however, until the nineteenth 

 century. In 1883 the Liverpool clearing house was established 

 in connection with the maize and wheat trade. It began after 

 the American fashion, but was not extensively used before the 



