to  £2  for  the  same  quantity.  But  stocks  of
both  types  are  subject  to  market  fluctuations,
and  an  increasing  or  decreasing  demand  for  a
particular  stock  will  rapidly  alter  the  facility
with  which  it  can  be  dealt  in  ;  so  that  the
free  market  of  to-day  becomes  the  laborious
negotiation  of  to-morrow.
Investors  do  not  buy  with  the  intention
to  sell  again  soon  after  ;  they  buy  to  hold
for  years.  Suppose  an  investor,  intending
in  1905  to  invest  in  a  speculative  South
American  Railway  stock  which  paid  a  high
rate  of  interest,  had  selected  the  then  sovery-mucli-talked-about
  Buenos  Ayres  &  Pacific
Railway  Common  Stock  rather  than  the
very  little  known  5  per  Cent.  Second
Preference  Stock  of  the  Cordoba  Central
Railway,  and  that  he  had  made  this  choice
because  the  former  stock  had  a  very  free
market,  whilst  in  Cordoba  Second  Preference
there  was  very  little  dealing  and  a  difference
of  £2  per  £100  between  the  quoted  buying
and  selling  prices.  The  income  yields  from
both  transactions  in  1905  were  about  the  same,
while  the  dividends  paid  in  the  meantime  on
both  stocks  remained  unchanged  ;  but  if  he
had  allowed  himself  to  fall  a  victim  to  the
free-market  delusion  and  had  bought  Buenos
Ayres  Pacific  Common  at  143  (quoted  then  at