It was not until 1873 that the Stock Exchange Clearing House was established, although nowadays it seems strange that the business of the settlement could ever have been arranged without it. An attempt had been made to establish a Clearing House in 1851, but it came to nothing. Even in 1873 the Clearing House was launched under private auspices, and it was not until seven years later that it came under the official control of the Committee. The chief characteristic of the seventies, however, was the number of commissions and inquiries dealing with Stock Exchange affairs. There was the Select Committee on Foreign Loans in 1875, which made some remarkable disclosures as to the methods of borrowing by South American States; there was the Select Committee on the working of the Companies Acts in 1877, and in 1878 there was the Royal Commission to inquire into the affairs of the Stock Exchange itself. An important enlargement of the Stock Exchange was opened in January, 1885, the addition being made of what is still called the New House. Three years before, in 1882, "Burdett's Official Intelligence," the Stock Exchange encyclopædia, had appeared for the first time. It had a precursor in "The Railway Intelligence," and in 1899 its title was altered to "The Stock Exchange Official Intelligence," the alteration not being without significance. Soon after the New House was opened, in January, 1885, the Stock Exchange was honoured by a visit, in the month of March, from the late King Edward, then Prince of Wales. In the following year, 1886, brokers were finally freed from the control of the authorities of the City of London. From time immemorial they had had to be licensed, and although the control was for a long time real and even salutary, it had been gradually whittled away until nothing remained but the payment by the broker of an annual licence fee. Even this was abolished in 1886. The latest great shock to credit which the country has suffered, the Baring crisis of 1890, had comparatively little effect upon the Stock Exchange. Remedies had been arranged by the Bank of England even before the difficulties were known, and Stock Exchange prices had begun to recover from the effects of the crisis within a week of the announcement of its existence. A deputation from the Stock Exchange presented an address to the Governor of the Bank of England, expressing its high appreciation of the admirable and effective manner in which the crisis had been overcome.