§ Mr. FIELDasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he is aware that since 1875 thousands of failures have occurred amongst Home and Foreign speculators, operating on the stock, produce, metal, wheat, cotton, sugar, and other exchanges through purely international gambling bull and bear operations in non-existing quantities; whether he proposes to take any action in the matter; and (2) whether he has any information showing that about 90 per cent. of the failures caused by gambling in options and futures, even in the case of fraud or insolvency, has never been made public, but have been privately compromised with the object of preventing exposure; whether this has been done in contravention of the rules of the exchanges; whether he will cause inquiries to be made on these points with the object of safeguarding the vested interests of bonâ fide traders, legitimate speculators, and in- 115W vestors, as well as the masses, from the losses caused by failures or gambling speculations in corners and other international bull and bear operations of various nationalities on British Exchanges?
Mr. BUXTONI have no doubt that a considerable number of failures are to be attributed to operations of the kind to which my hon. Friend refers, and that in other cases compositions may have been arranged privately; but as regards the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards the whole matter, I fear I can add nothing to the answer given to my hon. Friend on the 21st. May.