STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 505 
Speaking of the difficulties of the arbitrage business, a 
former governor of the Exchange stated: 
Because of its complexity and its risks, arbitraging is not a business 
that appeals to beginners on the floor. One must have reliable col- 
leagues on the foreign Exchanges who are constantly watchful and 
alert, and who are moreover possessed of sufficient capital to finance 
large transactions. In addition, there are labyrinthine difficulties to 
surmount in the way of commissions, interest charges, insurance of 
securities in transit, fluctuations in the money markets abroad and 
at home, cable tolls, letters of confirmation, rates of foreign exchange, 
settlement days, contangoes and many other matters. Unless a man 
has had a long experience in the difficult art of arbitraging, he had 
better shun it or prepare for trouble.® 
Into these and other subtleties and technicalities it is not 
particularly to our present purpose to inquire. It is sufficient 
to have instanced the basic principles upon which arbitrage 
operations rest. 
Former Arbitrage on the Floor.— Formerly this arbitrage 
business between New York and foreign centers had its appro- 
priate machinery on the Stock Exchange floor. Against the 
south wall of the board room was the “arbitrage rail,” behind 
which were pneumatic tubes connecting the floor with the cable 
offices in the basement of the building. As an added conven- 
ience, most of the so-called “international stocks’ were located 
at the row of stock posts nearest the rail. By posting them- 
selves near this rail, therefore, the members of the Exchange 
who did an arbitrage business could receive and deliver mes- 
sages and orders from and to the foreign stock exchanges with 
astonishing speed. According to the same authority cited 
above,* “the arbitrageur may buy in New York and sell in 
London and receive a confirmation, all in three minutes.” 
Few features of Wall Street life so irresistibly appeal to the 
imagination as this extraordinary business, conducted in the 
various world markets over the flashing cables with a speed 
vastly more rapid than the roll of the earth from darkness into 
Van Antwerp, p. 284