190 



the first la\v (No. 928) regulating the omissiui of War- 

 rants was passed. Since then innumerable piojects have 

 been passed, terminating in the last law No. 

 9643 in l!)14, besides numerous decrees by ihe respec- 

 tive Governments, all rout rolling the rond^'ions under 

 which warrants were to be brought into common use. 

 without nevertheless achieving the object aimed at. 



The cereal warrant, which it is sought to introduce 

 into common use, does not differ, except in the nature 

 of the goods it covers, from ordinary warrants. Com- 

 mercially, Warrants or mercantile warrants are nego- 

 tiable instruments giving a right to the delivery of 

 goods, generally deposited at a warehouse, and by mer- 

 cantile custom regarded as documents of title deed to 

 the goods to which they relate. They are a form o{ re- 

 ceipt giving the owner of the receipt the right to de- 

 mand delivery without reference to the original deposi- 

 tor, that is a transferable form of receipt, the responsi- 

 bility of the existence and sound nature of the goods 

 covered falling not on the depositor of th-> goods in 

 question but on the Owner of the warehouse where they 

 are deposited. 



The fundamental defect of all the laws and regu- 

 lations has been the failure to provide for a simple but 

 workable regulation such as would establish warrants 

 on an elementary basis suitable to the needs ot the coun- 

 try; the great primary error has been to attribute seri- 

 ous penalties for non-compliance with the rules and re- 

 gulations without first establishing bases for the crea- 

 tion of a recognised or standard acceptance of what 

 should constitute a sound and saleable article, and the 

 suitable conditions of warehousing, so that the funda- 

 mental security to the warrant ( that is to say, the ac- 

 tual conditions of warehousing) being misunderstood, 

 no possible extensive use has been made of the innu- 

 merable well intentioned laws and decrees. 



We see the same error still persisted in, by the at- 

 tempts to improvise storage places. 



MISDIRECTED ENERGIES. 



The energies at present dedicated to remedying 

 the evil of the absence of storage places should be de- 

 dicated to solving the question practically. Since we 

 have recognised our shortcomings, then serious attempts 

 should be made to remedy the deficiencies. If, as seems 

 proved, nothing practical results from all the efforts to 

 get round the question, such as the recent attempt to 



