262 



'Change for a whole generation as honourable and prosperous 

 merchants, saw their junior clerks leaving them with the reputation 

 of having made competencies in a few months by assuming risks 

 at which their employers would have stood aghast. 



The Jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign in June, 1887, was cele- 

 brated in Melbourne with an enthusiasm that was not excelled in any 

 part of the Empire. The tide of financial prosperity was approach- 

 ing high-water mark. Everybody had money to spend, from the 

 traditionally wealthy squatter down to the well-paid artisan, and 

 he spent it in a generous compliance with the scriptural mandate 

 to take no heed for the morrow. The winter season of that year 

 was made memorable to the rising generation by brilliant illumina- 

 tions and imposing pageants; official and social entertainments 

 crowded upon one another, and in the exuberance of newly acquired 

 and apparently unlimited wealth, many new schemes of philan- 

 thropy were liberally started, and large sums were reported week 

 by week as having been given, or promised, for Church work in 

 several of the denominations. Unhappily, many of the intending 

 donors had reckoned their wealth by a rule of thumb process that 

 was not justified when strict principles of book-keeping were 

 applied. Hence several of the churches came short of the noble 

 contributions of which they had prematurely boasted. Some indeed 

 had commenced new buildings upon the strength of promised con- 

 tributions which were intercepted by unsympathetic officials of the 

 Insolvent Court, and they had much cause to lament having listened 

 to the voice of the charmer. They were not without excuse, for 

 everybody believed in 1887 that he was making money, and on 

 the high road to affluence. New companies were floated every 

 week to give those who were too timid to speculate by themselves 

 an opportunity of sharing in the profitable speculations of the 

 directors and managers whom they called into existence. There 

 was no corner in the wide domain of finance that was not occupied 

 by some of these companies. They directly invaded the provinces 

 of the bank and the building society, and the keen competition of 

 their methods made it almost impossible for the established banks 

 and building societies to adhere to their legitimate functions without 

 losing both the custom and the confidence of their clients. They 



