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SUMMARY:Bears\, Bulls and Boers: Market Making and Southern African Mining
  Finance\, 1894-1899 - Professor Ian Phimister\, University of the Free St
 ate
DTSTART:20180313T170000Z
DTEND:20180313T183000Z
UID:TALK74841@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Duncan Needham
DESCRIPTION:This paper argues that the part played by financial speculatio
 n is crucial to understanding the history of gold mining in Southern Afric
 a during the 1890s. More specifically\, it suggests that the emphasis in m
 uch of the literature on production costs and their political implications
  may be misplaced in a period when the predominance of speculative activit
 y often rendered economic grievances irrelevant if not unimportant. By exa
 mining the structure of international share markets for Southern African\,
  particularly but not only Rand mining shares\, one that lent itself to ma
 nipulation\, 'market making'\, by major mining houses and companies\, this
  study scrutinises the unprecedented stock exchange boom and bust of the m
 id-1890s and its possible relationship to the Jameson Raid. It is an argum
 ent that takes issue with those views of the South African War which have 
 ascribed to the City of London's financial markets 'a thirsty impatience [
 for war]'(1)\, instead suggesting that important sections of London's fina
 ncial press and the City itself were perfectly content with the returns fr
 om the gold mining industry where these were not skewed by market making. 
 There was rather more criticism of speculative excesses by mining companie
 s than there was of Kruger's Transvaal Government\, at least until early 1
 899. Only then did key Randlords associate themselves with Imperial demand
 s for Boer acceptance of British suzerainty.
LOCATION:Darwin College (Seminar Room\, No. 1 Newnham Terrace - entrance v
 ia Porters Lodge on Silver St)
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