8.6, 9.1, 10.7, 8.7, 10.4, 10.5, 8.8, 7.4, 10.5, 14.1, 14.1, 9.3, 9.6, 7.8 and 7.4. The "peak years," when 14 per cent. was earned, were 1917 and 1918, when American industry was making abnormal war profits, and an income which starts at 8 per cent. and leaves off at 7½ per cent., having touched 14 and 5 per cent. in the meantime, can hardly be called regular. The really striking point, however, is that the share income at its nadir in 1904 was still above 5 per cent., and so better than the 4 per cent. which was credited to the bond investment.
The more interesting tests, however, are those which are taken for periods in which commodity prices were falling, so that industrial profits might be expected to have been on a much lower scale. And so we find them, though not low enough to bring the income from them below that which would have been earned by bonds. In Test No. 4, from 1880 to 1899, the total income from shares in twenty years comes out at $14,528, an average of $726.4 on an investment of $10,163, or roughly 7¼ per cent. as compared with 9 per cent. in the first test. Fluctuations are also much less lively, the highest point being $923 in 1882, and the lowest $622 in 1886. But it should be noted that in this test railroad shares were
