Part 5

That, perhaps, is not altogether surprising. Eldorado has become, in the popular imagination, a veritable Nazareth, out of which no good can come, and since shareholders cannot get out to Johannesburg to vent their wrath upon the heads on which it might with some propriety descend, they are with one accord taking it out of the English companies operating in South Africa which lie within their reach. This is not in consonance with strict justice, no doubt; but it will serve its purpose all the same, for it can hardly fail to convey a hint to quarters in which hints are greatly needed that the time has come for setting their houses in order, lest a worse thing befal. It is probably the case, as I have seen it stated, that the noise is made in inverse proportion to the stake. The big shareholder is intelligent enough to know something of the difficulties which follow upon the heels of a war and broad-minded enough to make allowances. The man with ten shares or twenty, who gets no dividend, and sees the market go steadily or unsteadily against him, loses all patience, and is fired with an ardent longing to break somebody’s head. What the small man voices, however, the big man feels, and the moral which these merry meetings should convey to Johannesburg is that shareholders have not put their money into South African ventures as an erratic form of recreation, but with the reasonable expectation of getting in their own lifetime a reasonable return. It is too much the fashion out there to regard the shareholder as a negligible quantity. Everybody seems to be bitten with the idea that the thing to aim at is bigness of aggregate return, bigness of mills, bigness of expenditure, bigness of everything except of the dividend declared. Megalomania of this description spells ruin to the proprietorial interest, and it is not compensated for by all the booby-talk about prolonging the lives of the mines. It is easy to understand the advantage of this prolongation to directors and managers and secretaries and engineers, and all the other hangers-on of the industry; but where the shareholder benefits from a division of his dividend by two and doubling the terms of years in which it is paid, is more than the average arithmetician can understand. The wrong turn was given to everything by Lord Milner, who saw with his mind’s eye a population of several millions on the Rand, and laid his lines accordingly. Lord Selborne, who is apparently a man of sense and moderation, is doing his best to curb and correct the extravagant ideas that had their genesis in the time of his predecessor, and there is much reliable information to warrant the belief that 1906 will be attended with very different results from 1905. It need be, for only another such year as the last is required, and South Africa will be for ever and a day undone so far as the British public is concerned.

The change of Government made no more difference in the markets than if it had been a change of footmen. The event had, in City parlance, been already discounted. To men who had imagined to themselves the vain thing that their exit would shake the financial spheres, as some of them doubtless did, it must have been gall and wormwood to see quotations actually rise on the day when their resignation became an accomplished fact. This could only be due to a sense of general relief, and to the feeling that the Liberal bark would prove far worse than its bite, so far as the interests dear to the City are concerned. It certainly was not owing to the new team being conspicuously strong either in business or finance. It is an anomaly, to say the least, that the transformation should result in a barrister being enthroned as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a solicitor installed as the President of the Board of Trade; but Mr. Asquith has shown himself quite at home with figures and fiscal questions during the past two years, and Mr. Lloyd-George has the reputation in the House of knowing a thing or two besides the wickedness of Mr. Chamberlain and the clauses of the Education Act.

Until the elections are over and done with, it is not probable that we shall witness anything very theatrical in Throgmorton Street; but the knowing ones are counting upon a marked improvement of gilt-edged securities when things have settled down. Just as Nature abhors a vacuum, so does the Stock Exchange abhor stagnation, and the one question on everybody’s lips is what to go for in the New Year. Yankees, too dangerous; Home Rails, not to be touched with a barge-pole; Foreign Rails, quite high enough already; Foreigners, not another eighth to be squeezed out of them; Breweries, wait a bit; Copper stocks, a gamble for lunatics. Such is the rough-and-ready pronouncement of three out of four of the old hands one meets. What all are agreed upon is that gilt-edged descriptions must advance and that Kaffirs cannot, the one owing to the plethora of money they see looming in the near distance, the other to the alleged but scarcely demonstrated fact that the public have spewed out their mining stocks and will not have them back at any price. I always like to note these confident predictions. They are so often made and so seldom borne out by the event. How easy it would be to make fortunes if they were! Except for the puff palpable—the price of which is as well known as that of a postage stamp—the financial press is shrewd enough for the most part to refrain from prognostications after the manner of the vaticinators in the sporting journals; but how much it would add to the gaiety of nations if they made selections for the rise and fall after the fashion of their compeers in Fleet Street! The only thing that may always be predicted with certainty of markets is that what will happen will be the unforeseen, and this is intelligible enough. The calculable influences are few in comparison with the incalculable—something occurs to upset the best-laid schemes of mice and men—and you will meet a dozen men who have made their little pile out of the short view for one who has staked his fortune without regret upon the long one.

I will not emulate, therefore, the fame of Zadkiel. I shall not prophesy because I do not know; but it scarcely needs a prophet to perceive that much in the coming year, if not everything, turns upon the course of events in the Empire of the Czar. It is easy to see how pregnant with possibilities is the situation if one takes into account that big dominating factor, and rules out all the rest as of minor account or of no account at all; and it is equally easy to perceive that we are at the mercy of a chapter of accidents. None will undertake to say what the outcome will be, least of all a Russian himself who knows his people and the subtle influences by which they are or may be moved. I have had the advantage during the past few weeks of coming into contact with several recent arrivals from that unhappy country, and the accounts they give are so confused and so contradictory as to leave one in a more impenetrable fog than if one had never taken any pains to learn the truth at all. On some things, however, they are all agreed. Russian news in the newspapers, so they say, must be taken with a liberal quantum of salt. The Jews, not without reason, hate Russia, or rather the established order in Russia; they control, directly or indirectly, the bulk of the leading journals of all countries, and the news agencies as well; their mission is to set down things in malice, to paint everything in the blackest colours, to ruin Russian credit abroad, and to bring down upon the Russian people the execration of the civilised world. The fires of revolution are alight, it is true, but the conflagration is not so widespread nor so all-consuming as the enemies of Russia would have the world believe, and a free and purified Russia will emerge. What will happen then is the problem; and all my Russian friends are at one in saying that any representative Government that may be established will set before itself two objects of policy—a better understanding with England, based upon a solemn renunciation of any designs against India, and development of the resources of the Empire by the aid of foreign capital.

So far as the former of these objects is concerned, it goes almost without saying that any English Government in power would go more than half-way to meet amicable and sincere advances; and as to the latter—with another _entente cordiale_ once established—the chances are that British capital will flow into Russia as it has flowed in turn into America, North and South, into Africa, into Australasia, into India, and into every quarter of the globe in which capital can be freely and safely employed. It is premature, perhaps, to say that Russian ventures will be the outstanding feature of 1906; but the event is on the cards, and the pioneer enterprises are already on the stocks. The world has not been standing still while the nations have been at war and the heathen have been raging furiously. During the past year or two, no end of little expeditions have been poking their noses into the recesses of the Ural region and the vast areas of the Siberian provinces, sending back reports of riches, mineral and agricultural, beyond the dreams of avarice. It is difficult to believe that resources of this description still exist in their virgin state so near comparatively to the Western capitals; but the evidence, coming as it does from so many capable and unimpeachable sources, is quite irresistible, and the inference appears to be inevitable that the exploitation of Russia is the next big task to which the world of finance and industry will direct its attention. The exploitation of China may wait, or be relegated to our friends and allies, the Japanese.

It must not be presumed from our readiness to settle the affairs of the nations that we have lapsed into indifference in the City as regards various little matters of domestic concern with respect to which agitation has been simmering for some time past. The relations of the House and the public are being canvassed more freely now than I have ever known, from within as well as from without. There is a consensus of opinion that things are not quite what they ought to be, as indeed they never have been and never will be even in this best of all possible worlds; but the insiders are afraid of pulling bricks about lest they should bring the entire edifice about their ears, while the outsiders are wanting in the organisation to give the old walls such a shove as would be felt by those within. It will not be long, however, before events compel the general overhaul which is recognised as a prime essential to the revival of business on such a scale as will enable the Stock Exchange man to live without sapping the very vitals of his clients. The complaints of the latter go to the very foundations of business as it is carried on to-day. Why should one pay brokerage when he buys? In every other business, it is the seller alone who pays. The answer is that the buyer must pay, or the broker, who deals with a jobber, would get no benefit from the transaction; to which comes the rejoinder that the jobber is the fifth wheel on the coach, and should not be privileged if he wishes to dispose of his wares. The force of the argument for dispensing with the middleman is perceived by all who are not hide-bound by tradition, use and custom, while practical recognition is being given to it in much of the business that is being transacted outside.

Then it is perceived that no sort of logical justification exists for the enormous difference made in brokerage between one class of goods and another, and between one client and another. For example, bonds are bought and sold on a commission of 1/16 per cent., mining shares on varying scales which work out at an average of ¾ per cent., which is enough to kill the finest business in the world. This excessive charge is not defended; but it is explained. When mining shares were first introduced, the public were very shy of them—and the House, too, for that matter—and promoting firms were ready to pay liberal commissions in order to get them placed, an operation often attended with difficulty and risk. Thus there came to be established a standard of expectation, the public paying whatever charge the broker chose to exact, and the mining market became the happy hunting-ground of new recruits by the thousand, who perceived in it the opportunity of quickly getting rich. Short cuts of this kind, however, generally prove the long way round in the end. Brokers as a class cannot thrive by bleeding their clients white by excessive commissions and contangoes. Either they make losses, which wipe out their gains, and more, or they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. They cannot acquit themselves altogether of some share in the collapse by which speculation of this character has been overtaken. Commonsense and competition point with unerring finger the direction of amendment and reform, and I expect to see established at no distant date an almost universal charge of ¼ per cent. upon the money, whether shares are bought or sold, or ½ per cent. if commission be charged on sales alone. Pending this concession, it is not probable that speculation will revive upon any considerable scale in the market which has been in the past the most attractive of all markets, and may be again if things are well and wisely handled. The loss of it would not be compensated for by rubber trash and cab companies, over which there will be some burning of fingers before long. “Trash,” did I say? Well, of course, that is much too sweeping a generalisation. As a fact, the great majority of the rubber concerns are moderately capitalised, and the demand for their product is going up with such leaps and bounds that they can only be regarded as sound and stable concerns. That, however, is where the trouble comes in. On the back of every successful form of enterprise kindred ventures are too often floated without much regard to the question whether they contain the elements of success or not. Like the razors that were made to sell, and not to shave, these undertakings are launched for the sake of the promotion, and for no other reason apparent to the wit of man. Promotion in the miscellaneous market has seldom much behind it. The shares once placed, those who are in may whistle for the day they will get out. There is but one fitting inscription for that section, regarded as a whole—“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Mining descriptions, with all their drawbacks and all their dangers, have as a rule at least the inestimable advantage of a “shop.” Mining promotions, I am given to understand, are likely to be almost nominal in the coming year; but there are miscellaneous things enough to stagger humanity awaiting a favourable moment to be launched.

G. P. F.

Half a Century’s Hunting Recollections. IV.

The mention of red deer reminds me of roe. As all the sporting world knows, Mr. Seymour Dubourg, before he took the South Berks country, was master of the Ripley and Knaphill Harriers. With these, at the end of the season, he used to hunt an occasional carted stag, but more frequently the wild roe deer, which were at that time to be found (they were never plentiful) between Windlesham, Bagshot, and Easthampstead, also in the heath and pinewood country south-west of the River Blackwater. It was a most interesting sport, and none the less attractive as coming at a time when foxhunting is practically over. The hounds were small foxhound bitches, I should say rather under than over twenty inches. With so accomplished a huntsman as Mr. Dubourg, I make no doubt that they did their work, as harriers, as it ought to the done. However that may be, they were the best pack of staghounds I ever saw. They went the pace, and were not big enough to kill a deer, bar accidents. With roe they drove like furies, but, I suppose from their harrier training, hardly ever over-ran it.

It is the manner of a roe, when first found, to make a point of 2 or 3 miles; then he returns almost to the starting place, or anyhow to its neighbourhood, and begins “making work.” In the straight part of his flight he is seldom far in front of hounds. But having begun his dodges, if he gets half a chance he will steal away, and, as likely at not, run the pack out of scent. His resources are legion. He can squat like a hare, swim like a fish, meuse through a fence like a rabbit, and jump over any ordinary park palings. He is most difficult to view, as he will crawl up a ditch or drain, and utilises every depression in the ground, and of course every bit of covert. He has the cunning of fox and hare combined, but not _very much_ more stoutness than the last named. In France, roe-hunting packs are not uncommon, and a friend of my own has one in Belgium, which, however, hunts hare as well. And a French friend of mine once asked me to stay with him for roe-hunting, promising to mount me, and doubtless I should have had a most enjoyable visit, but I preferred to stay at Melton. By the way, this gentleman valued Belvoir blood above all else.

The objections to the roe as a beast of chase may be gathered from the above. It is pretty hunting, but almost all in covert. The advantages are that you can hunt him all through the winter as you do the fox, and also that you can draw for him without any bother of “tufting,” as you never find more than a brace, or at most three together. When the latter is the case, it is a family party—buck, doe, and kid. The latter would stand but a poor chance were it not for its squatting, when the hounds dash away and settle to the moving scent. When roe are carefully preserved the woods will be full of them, as the young trees will soon tell you. I know nowhere at present, even in Scotland, where they are too numerous, and in the country I have described I should say that they are all but extinct, although some three years ago I saw a brace when Mr. Garth was drawing St. Leonard’s Forest.

With Mr. Dubourg’s hounds one had to ride up to them, if one wanted the venison. If he happens to read this, he will doubtless remember what happened once near Black Bushes Farm. Hounds had been running some time, and we thought “catching time” could not be far off. They came to (for that country at least) a very small wood. We each took one side of the covert (only the master and writer being there), but to our surprise saw no hounds away. To dive into the wood was, for Mr. Dubourg, “the work of an instant.” Arrived at his pack, he found that in those very few minutes they had not only killed the buck but (not bad judges!) had eaten the haunches, &c., and left only the head, neck, and forequarters. Unlike our other deer, the roe is at his best as venison, from the middle or end of October to the end of the hunting season. He sheds his horns late in the autumn. Roe venison has an undeservedly bad name, as lessees of Highland shootings often kill them in the grouse season.

As July and August are the months in which most of them pair, August for choice, _côtelette de chevreuil_ is best avoided until after the stalking season. By the way, the “stags” mentioned in the late Colonel Anstruther Thomson’s most interesting book were roe. My kind old friend wrote to me shortly before his death, to explain that his South Country hunt servants would call them stags, hence he got in the way of it. Of course, no red deer have been wild in Fife since almost prehistoric times. But some folks never can learn the proper names of deer. Once, in forest-hunting with our late Queen’s hounds, I saw an “instructor” from Sandhurst, who told me that the deer had just passed him, and that it was a fallow deer! “Are you sure of that?” said I (I never yet saw one there, unless he had been put there). “Oh, yes, it had no horns!” was the startling reply.

A short time ago there was a discussion in the _Field_ as to whether the progeny of hounds hunting deer, or hares, should be elegible for the Foxhound Stud book. I think it was decided against them, the theory being that staghounds do not carry a head. Now this is merely a question of their quarry. After a few days roehunting, Mr. Dubourg, (by invitation), uncarted a stag near Bracknell. Comins, at that time the Royal huntsman (or acting huntsman?), had been roehunting, and we both remarked the head these hounds carried then. We had a good run and took our stag safely, but from the moment the hounds were laid on, they went stringing along (I do not mean “tailing,” a very different thing) “just exactly like my hounds,” as Comins said to me. I saw the Queen’s hounds once run a cub in Swinley Forest, on a steaming, warm, wet October morning, and as they crossed a ride, close to the said cub, which was dead beat, they carried a head that neither Belvoir, Quorn, nor Pytchley, could have beaten. They were stopped just in time to save young Reynard. It was in October, as aforesaid, by which time a cub should be pretty well able to take his own part. Strange blunders have found their way into sporting history and been accepted as facts merely for want of contradiction, _e.g._, how often have we read that, in the spring, Mr. Meynell entered his young hounds to hare, for want of woodlands.

The absurdity of entering young hounds just in from walks, and with all their troubles before them, is obvious to any one who has ever been within measurable distance of a kennel. And as for no cubhunting ground, what was wrong with Charnwood Forest, the best cubhunting district in the world, and even better then than now, in the days preceding the Enclosure Act? Then, also, foxes were not much outnumbered by pheasants. Another victim of misstatement is Mr. (“Flying”) Childe, of Kinlet. I lately read that he hunted the Ludlow country _after_ he left Leicestershire. It was the other way about. He and the first Lord Forester went to Loughborough for the Quorn together, Melton not being invented when he gave up the Ludlow country, and set the fashion of pressing on hounds. In fact, Mr. Meynell describes Mr. Cecil Forester as coming out of cover between the fox and the pack! Again, the name of Mr. Childe’s Arab was not “Skim,” as we are told, but Selim, corrupted into Slim. His tail (grey) is still at Kinlet. He left some good hunting stock behind him, and I know where a portrait of a chestnut son of his is to be seen. Of Mr. Meynell “Nimrod” says, “In chase no man rode harder.” But he gave his hounds room, which from all accounts the immigrants from Salop did not. Yet I have read that he and his field merely crawled over a country. Also quite lately I have seen Mr. Edge, the welter weight Nottingham Squire, who refused a thousand guineas for his two horses, Banker and Remus, described as the “humble, silent friend” of Mr. Assheton Smith! Why on earth will people write on subjects of which they are ignorant? An outsider, writing on sport, or soldiering, is sure to make a spectacle of himself. Though this is a hunting subject, I cannot but call attention to a masterpiece of this kind in “Charles O’Malley,” by the late Mr. Charles Lever. In one of the Peninsula battles, he tells us that a general officer galloped up and gave the word, “14th, threes about, charge!” As this involved their charging tail foremost, no wonder that the French fled precipitately!