DAYS OF TRIAL 305 



almost felt in dealing with men like Sir Graham Berry or Mr. James 

 Munro, to whom the people of Victoria so confidingly handed over 

 the control of their Exchequer, that they were getting a kind of 

 Government guarantee. When the news reached London that Sir 

 Graham was one of the well-paid liquidators of the Mercantile Bank 

 while holding the honourable position of Treasurer of the colony, 

 the indignation was loud and deep, and the national credit suffered 

 by the inferences the angry depositors drew. 



It certainly did look on the surface as if the horde of companies 

 in their scramble for deposits had entered upon a course of deliberate 

 deception. Many of them, which were started as land-dealing 

 companies pure and simple, changed their titles for the purpose of 

 disguising the business they were doing when it became tainted. 

 Thus the "Victorian Freehold Bank," a small company promoted 

 to take over the business of a firm of land agents, became, when it 

 went to London for deposits, the "British Bank of Australia ". It 

 even succeeded in floating an offshoot under the all-embracing title 

 of the "Anglo-Australian Bank," which snared some deposits by 

 means of balance-sheets so palpably fraudulent as eventually to 

 land the managing officials in the criminal dock. The " Victoria 

 Land Company" became the "Victorian Deposit and Mortgage 

 Bank," and so on through a whole catalogue. Perhaps the most 

 striking example of this practice of adapting the title to the object 

 in view was in the case of a company to which special attention was 

 drawn in a State paper submitted to the British Parliament in 

 August, 1893. The company, originally called "Henry Arnold & 

 Co., Limited," was so successful in its land dealings that it not only 

 distributed large dividends, but increased its capital by the issue of 

 10,000 new 10 shares at a premium of 7 10s. per share, and they 

 were over-applied for. To meet its growing importance the name 

 was changed to the " Melbourne Deposit and Mortgage Bank," but 

 when it opened a London office to tap the deposit market it became 

 the "English and Australian Mortgage Bank," under which title it 

 gathered in 500,000 sterling of the spare cash of the British investor. 



The millions of deficiencies shown in the insolvent estates of the 

 thousands who passed through that Court were not properly de- 

 scribed as losses. They were largely anticipated but unrealised 



VOL. IL 20 



