306 



profits of shameless gambling. They only existed on paper, and as 

 a rule left their disconcerted owners no worse off than they had 

 been a few years before. But in the entanglement of this web of 

 financial intrigue the thrifty were the real sufferers. Hundreds of 

 families, who took no part in the active land and share jobbing, but 

 were innocently the providers of the means for it by depositing their 

 savings at tempting rates of interest, were reduced to penury. 

 Several distressing suicides occurred, of men who found themselves 

 hopelessly involved, and lacked courage to face the consequences. 

 It was to the credulous but honest victim of the company promoter 

 that the depressing cloud of uncalled capital hung suspended like 

 the fiat of doom during the last years of the century. It has been 

 computed that the liabilities for calls in 1891-93 exceeded 10,000,000 

 sterling. Of course the bulk of this was absolutely irrecoverable. 

 Something like two-thirds of it disappeared in the Insolvent Court, 

 in compositions with creditors, or in compulsory liquidation. 

 Many of the outside institutions worked in conjunction, and 

 found the money, or rather the credit which represented the 

 share capital, in each other. One sample will suffice. The Anglo- 

 Australian Bank in its balance-sheet of August, 1891, stated 

 shareholders' capital at 110,000. In the criminal prosecution 

 which followed its suspension, it was proved that the only amount 

 actually paid up was 37 10s. The remainder of the "capital" 

 was represented by an overdraft in the British Bank of Australia, 

 its foster parent, for the amount assumed to be paid for the shares 

 by an official, who intended to unload them on the public. In the 

 British Bank itself, the uncalled capital, which stood at 350,000, 

 produced less than 10,000, all the large holdings of shares being 

 in the names of insolvent kindred companies or their penniless 

 nominees. The same method of manufacturing capital was adopted 

 by the Imperial Banking Company, and a score of others, showing 

 how fictitious was the security depositors relied on when placing 

 their money outside the ordinary channels. Another cruel hardship 

 to the genuine investing shareholder in these institutions can be 

 best illustrated by a concrete instance. The Freehold Investment 

 and Banking Company had a subscribed capital of 1,500,000, of 

 which only 270,000 was paid up. There were 66,000 shares in 



