Who,  for  instance,  would  have  believed,  in
1897,  when  Consols  were  114,  that  in  seven
years’  time  they  would  have  fallen  to  85  ?  Or,
again,  who  would  have  calculated  on  any
statistical  basis  that  Canadian  Pacific  Railway
Common  stock  would  rise  from  35  to  182
within  the  space  of  ten  years,  or  that  Atchison,
Topeka  and  Santa  Fé  Railway  Ordinary  would
rise  from  $9  to  $91  during  the  same  period  ?
Whether  in  adversity  or  in  prosperity,  the
future  of  any  given  investment  must  always
remain  a  matter  of  considerable  speculation.
No  doubt  there  exists  a  large  body  of  investors ­
  who,  by  shutting  their  eyes  to  obvious
facts,  endeavour  to  deny  that  the  element  of
speculation  enters  in  any  way  into  the  act  of
investment.  Such  wilful  perversity,  however,
is  only  a  fruitful  cause  of  disastrous  capital
losses.  Investors  of  this  type  will  be  heard  to
assert  that,  having  bought  none  but  the  safest
of  stocks,  their  capital  must  be  secure.  Further,
they  argue  that,  so  long  as  their  income  remains
undiminished,  they  can  afford  to  let  the  realisable ­
  value  of  their  capital  take  care  of  itself.
But  although  such  specious  arguments  may
seem  indefinitely  to  postpone  the  day  of
reckoning,  yet  sooner  or  later  the  actual
situation  will  have  to  be  faced,  and  no  investor
can  afford  to  delude  himself  with  the  idea  that