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The  dominating  force  which  controls  the
realisable  value  of  all  stocks  and  shares
principally  held  in  any  one  country  is  the
spending  and  saving  power  of  the  people  of
that  country.  The  extent  of  this  spending
and  saving  power,  again,  depends  upon  the
state  of  trade  of  the  country.
The  reason  for  this  is  that  whenever  trade
is  good  the  earnings  of  the  money-saving
classes  exceed  their  immediate  wants  ;  they
therefore  hoard  their  surplus  earnings.  Precisely ­
  as  these  surplus  earnings  increase  with
good  trade,  so  do  they  dwindle  during  periods
of  trade  depression.  Thus  the  saving  power
of  any  nation  entirely  depends  upon  the  productiveness ­
  of  its  trade.  While  trade  continues ­
  to  be  active,  a  large  portion  of  these
surplus  earnings  finds  its  way  back  into  trade,
the  effect  of  which  is  to  further  augment  the
gross  earnings  and  thus  again  add  to  the
savings  ;  and  so  on  the  whole  time  of  the
trade  boom.  As  soon  as  trade  begins  to
slacken,  and  requires  less  capital  to  keep  it
going,  these  accumulated  savings  are  set  free
and  an  investment  outlet  has  to  be  found  for
•  them.
In  addition  to  the  savings  of  traders  there
are  the  savings  of  a  large  number  of  professional ­
  people.  The  amount  of  money  which