little later in the day, and presented to them the
following statement of the action taken by the Clearing House.

"There was a meeting of the Clearing House Committee this morning
in view of the closing of the New York Stock Exchange. It was the
opinion of the Committee that the business and financial
condition of New York and the entire country was sound but that
the situation in Europe justified extreme prudence and
self-control on the part of the United States; that the closing
of the Stock Exchange was a wise precaution by reason of the
disposition of all Europe to make it the market for whatever it
wished to sell, and that in this country there was no occasion
for any serious interruption of the regular course of business,
either financial or mercantile."

After the retirement of Mr. Hine, the Chairman of the Committee on
Clearing House of the Exchange stated that all the checks given to the
Clearing House had been certified, and a notice was thereupon sent out
instructing members to call for their drafts at the usual hour. Thus
all the differences due on the day's transactions of July 30th were
settled, and a first encouraging step was taken. It was also decided
to permit the offering of call money on the floor of the Exchange.

The Committee held its second meeting on August 1st and the first of
the long series of problems growing out of the closing of the market
was at once presented to it. A letter from a brokerage house doing
business with Europe was received in which it was pointed out that
"arbitrageurs" who had sold stocks in New York and bought them in
London during the previous fortnight had made their deliveries by
borrowing stock in New York; that the stock purchased in London was
due to arrive on this side, and that the usual process of financing
it by returning the previously borrowed stock had been cut off through
the suspension of unfulfilled contracts. This was likely to lead to
very grave embarrassment because call money had practically
disappeared and houses to whom this foreign stock was consigned might
not be able to meet their obligation to pay for it as it arrived.
There being no arrivals of foreign stock expected that day, the
Committee deferred action, and thus gained time to think out ways and
means of meeting the difficulty.

The second problem presented came in the form of a request for
permission to sell securities outside of t