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profitable investment may be said to rest 
on the following law :—The realisable values of 
all securities whose market lies chiefly in any 
one country are under the dominant influence 
of the trading conditions of that country. 
We commenced this explanation by quoting 
the price-movements of the London, Brighton 
& South Coast Railway 4| per Cent. Perpetual 
Debentures, which fell from 180 in 1896 to 
134 in 1904, although no alteration had taken 
place either in the capital safety or in the 
dividend productiveness of this security. The 
explanation of this apparently inexplicable 
price-movement is now simple, and this stock’s 
serious depreciation was solely due to the 
external influences obtaining on the London 
Stock Exchange. These external influences 
dragged down the price of every English 
security, beginning with Consols and going 
down to the shares of industrial trading 
companies. 
The annual totals of the average annual 
prices given at the foot of the chart of British 
securities give a very complete picture of how 
all investors who had invested their capital 
solely in British stocks have fared between 
1893 and 1906. These figures teach the valu 
able lesson that :—Every investor who 'places 
his money exclusively in the investments of 
D 2