During the latter part of Thursday evening, Mr. Labouchere moved
that no investigation in regard to recent events in South Africa would be complete unless it extended to the financial and political action of the Company since the grant of the Charter. The object of the " successive raids of the Company was, he declared, to influence the Stock Exchange. The shares of the Company stood at 12s. before the Matabele war, but by means of Stock Exchange manceavres they went up to £9, and "thus a million pounds was being sold to the investing public at twenty- three millions." There ought to be an investigation, and the proper tribunal was a Committee of the House. Mr. Arnold-Forster seconded the amendment, and in an able and courageous speech protested against the mixing up of the functions of government with the pursuit of wealth. Were they not paying too great a price for the additions to the Empire which they believed had come to them from the Company ? He found society had been, so to speak, " salted." High and low, the trail of the serpent. was over them, and he should like to know who was, and who was not, interested in the shares of the Company. The original list of shareholders, " locked up in one of the cup- boards of the House," was "void and uninforming." He wanted the information carried down to the present time, so that the country could see precisely how things stood. " An amount of money had been circulated in the interests of the Company which was shocking to contemplate." There was only one tribunal strong enough to deal with the Company,— that of public opinion.. Sir H. Farquilar replied, on behalf of the Company, by declaring that its financial position had never been sounder. ' After paying off their debentures, they would have £600,000 in free cash.
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