58

contained  in  the  all-British  List.  Their
inferiority  is  attested  by  the  fact  that  their
average  annual  widths  of  fluctuation  are
greater  than  the  widths  of  fluctuation  in
the  all-British  List.  In  a  similar  International
List,  but  composed  exclusively  of  higher  grade
securities  which  we  publish  in  Chapter  V.  of
this  book,  the  maximum  capital  variation
during  a  period  of  ten  years  is  very  slight.
As  the  aim  of  that  chart  is  to  show  how
funds  can  be  invested  with  the  greatest  safety
both  of  Capital  and  Income,  we  naturally
chose  stocks  of  a  higher  grade  than  we  have
done  here,  where  our  object  is  to  show  how
widely  different  are  the  price-movements  of
stocks  of  various  nationalities.  But  by
selecting  stocks  of  great  width  of  fluctuation
for  the  International  List  exhibited  in  this
chapter,  we  are  now  in  a  position  to
show  by  comparison  with  the  all-British  List
that  the  Geograjjhical  Distribution  of  Capital
collectively  endows  an  Investment  List,
consisting  of  individually  inferior  stocks,  with
greater  Capital  Stability  than  is  possessed  by
an  Investment  List  composed  of  higher-grade
stocks,  all  influenced  by  the  same  investment
risk.  So  that
An  investor  who  geographically  distributes
his  capital  can,  with  safely,  afford  to  hold  stocks