To mention the firm of Gamage is not to advertise
it. Of general advertisement, indeed, it stands in little need. The name itself may induce curiously different reactions. Many persons, like myself, will think first of their school days, when those immense catalogues could be had for the price of a halfpenny postcard, and, resultant orders, to the amount of perhaps ninepence, e.g. for an implement alleged to be capable of locking or unlocking a railway carriage door, were punctually and accurately discharged. But now Gamage's has dis- tinguished itself by driving that most neurotic of all public bodies. the Stock Exchange, into a very crise de nerfs. For Gamage's has reduced its profits and reduced its dividend (to the still not negligible figure of 35 per cent.). It 'earned £341,368 last year, as against £542,653 in 1947-48, nearly as much in 1946-47 and £164,355 in 1945-46. Now everyone knew perfectly well that the swollen profits of the last two years were due almost wholly to lucrative deals in ex-Government stocks and that when they were sold out there would inevitably be a reaction. No matter. No matter either that last year's profit was more than double that of the last normal year, 1945-46. The Gamage results are the beginning of the end of the world, or at any rate the sellers' market, so far as the Stock Exchange speculator is concerned. The slump is here. Bankruptcy is just round the corner. Turn all your holdings into notes and put them in a safe-deposit (for you can't really trust the banks). That way you may save something from the impending, or actually existent, crash. Thus the hard-headed business men whom a straw will knock reeling off their balance. If only they could remember how often pessimism breeds the very ills it fears.
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