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ARARAT — AR

bitration

11,500 feet, is covered with good pasture ; the upper and bold operators possessed of large resources, while those lower zones are for the most part sterile. Many traditions who have small means often succumb in a commercial connected with the Deluge gather round Ararat. The crisis. As regards foreign exchange and bullion, arbitrage garden of Eden is placed in the valley of the Araxes ] operators stand on a fairly safe foundation^ the fluctuaMarand is the burial-place of Noah’s wife; at Arghuri, a tions being slight and involving little or no risk, although village near the great chasm, was the spot where Noah they yield a very small margin of profit. In fact arbitrage planted the first vineyard, and here were shown Noah’s between London and the continent of Europe has dwindled, vine, and the monastery of St James, until village and owing to competition, to almost vanishing point, but monastery were overwhelmed by a fall of rock, ice, and operations with distant countries such as India are large snow, shaken down by the earthquake of 1840. Since and mainly profitable. Arbitrage with India consists 1856 Ararat has been climbed by Bryce (1876), Markoff chiefly in buying bills of exchange in London, such as India Council rupee bills amounting to about 16 millions (1888), Pastuchow and Lynch (1893). Bryce, Transcaucasia, and Ararat, 4th ed. 1896. Lynch, sterling annually, and commercial bills drawn against goods exported to India. The counter-operation consists Armenia. London, 1901. (c. W. W.) in purchasing in India, for short or long delivery, sterling Ararat, a municipality and railway station in bills drawn against exports to Great Britain of Indian Australia, Victoria, in the county of Ripon, 131-| postal produce, such as cotton, tea, indigo, jute, and wheat. These miles N.W. of Melbourne, with which it is connected operations greatly facilitate trade and the moving of (yid Ballarat) by rail. It is the commercial centre of the produce from the interior of India to the seaports. Withnorth-western grain and wool producing district, and is this assistance Great Britain’s enormous trade could also noted for its quartz and alluvial gold mines. Excellent out not be carried on, and she would have to revert to the wine is made. The district also yields the best timber in primitive of barter. The same advantages are great quantity. Granite, bluestone, limestone, and slate afforded tosystem her vast trade with China and Japan, with the abound in the neighbourhood. It has a large lunatic asylum, and is an assize town. Altitude, 1072 feet. material difference that the supply of Government council Rainfall (14 years), 24'37 inches. Population (1881), bills is confined to the Indian trade. The balance of trade with all countries is generally settled by specie shipments ; 2740; (1891), 3151; (1901), 3580. hence, with the Far East, silver and gold play an Aras, Araxes, a river which rises in the Bin-geul important part in arbitrage. Dagh, south of Erzerum, and, after flowing eastward It is impossible to imagine the difficulties and confusion ' through the territories of Turkey and Russia, forms the which would arise in the absence of the arbitrageur. It boundary between Persia and Russia. It formerly joined is the system of arbitrage, based on principles which are the Kur, but since 1897, when it changed its lower course, the necessary outcome of successful commerce, which it has run direct to the Kizil Agach Bay of the Caspian. renders vast operations possible, and greatly facilitates the enormous British export and import trade, while mainArauan. See Sahara. taining those international connexions which tend to Arbela, now Erbil, a small town east of the Tigris, secure general peace and prosperity. (s. m.) in the Mosul vilayet. The battle in which Alexander defeated Darius was fought at Gaugamela, on the Bumodus, Arbitration.—Since the publication of the ninth now Khazr Su, a tributary of the Greater Zab, and not at edition of this work the law as to arbitration has, both in Arbela. In the 14th century the Christians were massacred England and Scotland, undergone considerable modificaand almost exterminated. Population, 4000. tion. The principal changes in the English law have been Arbitrage.—Arbitrage is the term applied to the made by the Arbitration Act, 1889. This statute—which, system of equalizing prices in different commercial centres it should be noted, is an express code as to proceedings by buying in the cheaper market and selling in the dearer. in all arbitrations—subdivides its subject matter into two These transactions, or their converse, are mainly confined headings :—I. References by consent out of court; II. to stocks and shares, foreign exchanges, and bullion; and References under order of court. I. References by Consent out of Court.—Here the first are for the most part carried on between London and the Continental capitals, and largely with New York. When matter to be dealt with is the submission. A submission prices in London are affected by financial or political is defined as a written agreement (which must be signed causes, all other markets are sooner or later influenced, as by both parties or their authorized agents) to submit London is the banking and financial centre for the com- present or future differences to arbitration, whether a merce of the world. It may, however, also occur that particular arbitrator is named in it or not. Under the law some local event of importance initiates a rise or fall in prior to the Act of 1889, (a) an agreement to refer disputes a particular market which must ultimately affect other generally, without naming the arbitrators, was always countries. For instance, a revolution or a threat of one irrevocable, and an action lay for the breach of it, although in France would immediately depress all French securities, the court could not compel either of the parties to proceed and by exciting the fears of capitalists would stimulate under it; (b) an agreement to refer to a particular arbitransfers of funds and raise all the exchanges against trator was revocable, and if one of the parties revoked that France. particular arbitrator’s authority he could not be compelled In ordinary times those engaged in arbitrage operate to submit to it; (c) when, however, the parties had got with a very small margin of profit. The great improve- their tribunal fixed, and were proceeding to carry out the ment in postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communication agreement to refer, the Act 9 and 10 Will. III. c. 15 proenables operators to close transactions with amazing vided that the submission might be made a rule of court, rapidity, while competition reduces the margin of profit a provision which gave the court power to assist the to a minimum. Operations in American stocks and parties in the trial of the case, and to enforce the award of shares are carried on between London and New York on the arbitrators; (d) the statute 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 42 put a vast scale, while transactions in African mining shares an end to the power to revoke the authority of a particular are undertaken to a considerable extent between London arbitrator after the reference to him had been made a and Paris. The frequent fluctuations in the prices of rule of court; and—a liability which existed also under the latter securities offer a large and fruitful field to the Act of 9 and 10 Will. III. c. 15—any person revoking