Page:The History of Ballarat.djvu/467

 new vigor to all kinds of share market business. There are over a hundred members in the Ballarat Stock Exchange, and the press of business there lately has given them two sittings daily of over an hour's duration each for the most part, whereas in times of duller enterprise half that time has served for the transaction of business. Some surprise was caused a few days ago by an announcement in a Melbourne paper that Mr. Thomas Stoddart, of the Ballarat Exchange, had paid £800 for a seat in the Melbourne Exchange, but enquiry proved that the statement was true, and that the purchase was probably a highly beneficial one for the purchaser. Mr. Stoddart's theory is, that the Melbourne Exchange is to be the great exchange of the Australian colonies, and that it may some day, not far off, rival the San Francisco Exchange, where he saw a seat sold for 40,000 dollars. He paid £600 to Mr. Melhado for the Melbourne seat, and £200 as an entrance fee, but since then the Melbourne Exchange has decided to limit its roll to 100 members, and to charge £1000 each for the 25 new seats to make up the hundred, the capital thus accumulating to be used in the erection of a new exchange building worthy of the times and the metropolis. This is mentioned as an illustration of the magnitude of the sharebroking and sharedealing interests, and because they are indications of the large amount of attention and capital devoted to the exploration of our gold mines. The Ballarat Exchange bears a prominent part in the general sum of mining business, and though, as we write, the local "boom" is not so high in its swing as it was a week or two ago, the impetus given by it to local enterprise is bound to be productive of good, in the greater life imparted to an industry with whose fortunes the prosperity of this city and district must, for generations to come, be intimately connected.