“In our last report we referred to the great danger which may be brought about through delaying the revision of the Bourse Laws, and we are now pointing to it again because we consider it our duty to impress again and again a wider circle of the public with the economic value of the Stock Exchange and its important relation to our financial preparedness in times of war.” Again, the following year the bank kept pounding away on the same theme: “If it had still been necessary to furnish proof of the regrettable fact that the German Bourses are no longer able to accomplish their task--equally important to the welfare of the people as to the standing of the Empire--the trend of events during the past financial year in general, and the result of the last German Government issues in particular, would have furnished that proof.” Meanwhile, other leading financial institutions took up the same cry. Thus the Dresdner Bank in its report in 1899 said: “The danger which lies in the ban put on speculation, especially in the prohibition of trading for future delivery in mining and industrial securities, will become manifest to the public, if, with a change of economic conditions, the unavoidable selling force cannot be met by dealers willing and able to buy. It will then be too late to recognize the harmful effects of the Bourse Law.” In 1902 the Disconto-Gesellschaft reports: “The unfortunate Bourse Laws continue to be a grave obstacle to business activity.” And again in 1903: “The Bourse will not be able to resume its important economic functions until the restrictions upon trading for future delivery have been removed.”[86] The lesson to be learned from the failure of the German Bourse Law of 1896, and from the frank recognition of that failure as evidenced by the repeal of 1908, cannot be overestimated in its importance. It is inconceivable that law-makers of to-day may ignore such a warning. I have quoted freely from Professor Emery of Yale University in pointing out the deplorable results of that legislation because his study of the subject has made him the foremost authority. The remonstrances of the German banks and business men have also been cited because they were on the spot; they saw and felt the prostration of German business that followed swiftly on the heels of this law; they were a unit in pronouncing it a wretched failure. In the appendix to this work will be found the report of the Hughes Commission in which the ten experts on that board unanimously reported “the evil consequences” of Germany’s experiment, its “grotesque” operation in practice, and its utter failure.