Gambling in Farm Produce. 295 
surplus is absolutely necessary to meet the demands of Europea u 
consumption. 
Indian wheat to a great extent is sold under the future 
system ; but in all cases, I believe, there are actual shipments 
against the contracts. 
The question of the validity of contracts for future delivery 
has been the subject of conflicting decisions in the courts of 
different American States ; but in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, in a case decided in 1884, the American law 
was authoritatively stated by Mr. J ustice Matthews as follows : — 
The generally accepted doctrine in this country is, as stated by Mr. 
Benjamin, that a contract for the sale of goods to be delivered at a future 
day is valid, even though the seller has not the goods nor any other means 
of getting them than to go into the market and buy them ; but such a 
contract is only valid when the parties really intend and agree that the 
goods are to be delivered by the seller and the price to be paid by the 
buyer. And if, under guise of such a contract, the real intent be merely 
to speculate in the rise or fall of prices, and the goods are not to be 
delivered, but one party is to pay the other the difference between the 
contract price and the market price of the goods, at the date fixed for 
executing the contract, then the whole transaction constitutes nothing 
more than a wager, and is null and void. And this is now the law in 
England, by force of the statute of 8 & 9 Viet. c. 109, s. 18, altering 
the Common Law in that respect. (Benjamin on Sales, 541, 542, and notes to 
fourth American edition by Bennett.) 
Such a transaction as is declared valid in this judgment 
would be equally valid under the Anti-Option Bill, provided 
that the goods were delivered to a manufacturer or consumer, 
but not otherwise. 
At the Conference of the National Board of Trade, already 
referred to, Mr. Raymond, of Chicago, a defender of the option 
system, described the process of “ ringing-out” as follows : — 
Suppose that there were a million bushels of wheat which were sold ten 
times. That represents contracts for ten million bushels outstanding. The 
clerks who represent the members of the Boards of Trade in these trans- 
actions come upon the Board, and they say to Mr. Jones : “ You owe Mr. 
Smith one million bushels of wheat.” “Yes, eir.” “ Well, Mr. Smith, you 
owe Mr. Doe a million bushels of wheat. Mr. Jones owes it to Mr. Smith 
at a certain price, and Mr. Smith owes it to the next man at a certain other 
price.” So the boys find out nine or ten men in this ring in which this 
million bushels of wheat are concerned, and they finally find what the cost 
to each gentleman is, so that in the closing of that transaction when the 
delivery day comes, instead of one seller delivering the invoice to the first 
man and taking his million bushels in grain, the receipts are figured up, in- 
cluding storage, and he gives his cheque for the amount, and so with the 
next man and the next, so that the wheat passes around from the first man 
to the last, each intermediate man getting the respective amount due to him 
for the difference in price. 
At the same Conference Mr. A. J. Sawyer, of Minneapolis, 
