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 in 
vestors 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 realis 
able 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