The limitation of clerks is another modern innovation in Stock Exchange history. Before March, 1902, the limitation was not nearly so strict, and the grade of clerk who is confined to the Settling Room, and had not the run of the whole House, was unknown. The innovation furnishes more evidence of the space difficulty with which the authorities of the Stock Exchange have to contend, and ocular evidence of the same difficulty is to be had by strangers in the vicinity of the Stock Exchange in the large number of young men wearing the blue badge, which denotes an unauthorised clerkship of the Stock Exchange, and the red badge, which denotes the Settling Room clerkship. The badge is imposed as a means of identification in connection with many complaints that arose as to clerks loitering about the already congested markets. They are badged and forbidden to loiter.
It is as one of these clerks that a candidate for membership can qualify for admission on the special terms we have indicated. If the applicant has served as a clerk for four years, with a minimum service in the House of three years, his entrance fee is 250 guineas instead of 500 guineas, his application requires the backing of only two guarantors instead of three, whilst the amount of each guarantee is only £300 instead of £500. As the total number of clerks employed is some 2,500, and as there are twice as many members, it is obvious that whilst some members and firms desire more assistance within the House, many do not exercise the privilege of employing any clerks at all.
Just as the interests of the proprietors of the Stock Exchange are in the hands of a body of Trustees and Managers, so are the interests of the members under the control of a Committee, which is called the Committee for General Purposes. The Managers provide and maintain the market-place, and thus make profit on the proprietors' capital; the Committee presides over the dealings in the market, and, of course, makes no profit in any way. It consists of thirty members, elected by ballot annually. Sometimes the election is exciting, when, for instance, the policy of the Committee on any point is questioned, but more usually it is a very formal affair. But exciting or formal, a few of the ballot-papers handed in by the members are, strange to say, always spoilt. The member of the Stock Exchange is prone to give vent to his feeling of admiration or indignation for the benefit of the scrutineers even at the expense of losing his votes altogether.