no machine has ever been known to wear out because it has always been superseded by a better one, and sent to the scrap-heap long before it had ceased to work efficiently.
As to unquoted investments a rough value can be arrived at from the income received from them, though there may always be room for much argument as to the basis on which this income should be capitalized; and it may often happen that a holding of shares on which no dividend at all is received may bring indirect business advantages which should rightly figure in a balance-sheet which aims at truth. But the sum at which they ought to figure is a matter which may cause very wide differences of opinion.
And when we come to doubtful debtors, hope pulls one way and fear pulls the other, and who is to decide between them? Trade possibilities and the psychology of the debtor reacting on and confusing one another make them in some ways the most difficult problem of all. Yet Mr. Leake[1] says that "it is comparatively easy to estimate the value of book debts, or of stock-in-trade, because such assets are likely to be turned into money within a short period of time." But the mere fact that provision has to be made not only for
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 25.
