An investor who confines himself to mortgages on real property is in a stronger position, being, or hoping that he is going to be, not an owner but a creditor, with all the advantages that we have seen to be attached to that position, with the addition that in the matter of real property the right of foreclosure that goes with a watertight mortgage is more practical and valuable than we shall find it to be when we come to consider the question of industrial debts.
Foreclosure means the right, if the debtor does not pay interest or repay the debt if it be demanded, to sell the property over his head and repay oneself out of the proceeds, the balance, if any, going to the debtor. This right is more practical and valuable with regard to houses and land, because they are articles that are wanted to a certain extent on their own account and have some sort of a price whatever be the circumstances of those who live in or on them, whereas a factory or the building in which a great multiple shop is carried on, or a railway station, might, if the enterprise that uses it is a failure, be quite unsaleable and a mere encumbrance to anybody that seized it for the payment of a debt, who would have to begin by spending money on rebuilding it before it could be sold.
