Gambling and Fraud Losses.

The depth of the reaction of stock exchange disturbances on the general commercial and industrial life of a modern highly commercialized country has still to be plumbed. Stock exchange disturbances of two kinds are before the world—those caused by frenzied speculation, and those caused by criminal dishonesty, such as has earned Hatry fourteen years’ penal servitude. The proposal to charge the bankers as accessories has not materialised. Evidence was given of a deficiency of thirteen millions in Hatry's affairs, of which, it is said, only about three-quarters of a million falls on the public. Financial writers pronounce 1929 a bad year. Five hundred millions is the small sum representing the decline of stock and share values during the year, according to the “Daily Express,” which mentions the Hatry affair and the depreciations in Inveresk papers, Royal Mail Steam Packets, etc., and writes: “No year within memory has been fraught with such disasters.” But the close of the year was somewhat brightened by the reduction of the Bank of England rediscount rate. to 5 per cent. As a borrowing country, as a remote land whose trade and finance are washed by the waves sent out from Europe and America, as a fly which, even on the rim of the wheel, feels the centripetal pull, New Zealand is vitally interested in all these events at the world centres.