For about four years before the final debacle of 1911 native banking was in a most precarious position. Most of the banks were unaware which day would be their last. They were using makeshifts by selling goods at heavy loss, and thus obtaining liquid capital to work with. There was for a time certain amount of slackness in imports, while the proportion of exports was increasing. Still, however, they were always attempting to follow some course which would bring them a fair amount of profits and cover the losses which they had been undergoing for some time. They took to all kinds of speculations, including land, foreign stocks and securities, and worst of all, rubber shares. It unfortunately proved a succession of losses to them. Anything the banks took up in the way of speculation failed and, with the collapse of the rubber boom, began the collapse of native banking, as it was then practised in China. The craze for speculation was great and in a few cases dictated by considerations of final efforts to save themselves from bankruptcy. Cargoes, land, building or anything that would serve as security were mortgaged in order to . get necessary capital with which to gamble. Like everybody else, the Chinese thought that the rubber boom was a Godsend to them; the native banks indulged heavily in speculation in the hopes that the advance in share values would continue and the losses incurred in the course of business for years might be made good. As a matter of fact the losses were not made good, but increased several fold; and the result was that over half of the native banks, in Shanghai and the ports, had to shut their doors.