Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/211

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established Trust Company should form part of the collection of investors who aim at increase of income and capital will be readily agreed, and the advantages of these companies will be set forth fully later. For the moment, however, it must be observed that a blind purchase of Trust Company ordinary stocks or shares can by no means be relied on as a royal road to investment salvation. The history of the British Trust Companies has been marked by striking successes, but has also been strewn with wreckage and disaster. In fact the difficulties that face the ordinary investor are never more clearly shown than when we contemplate the mistakes that have been made in the past by the skilful and well-informed managers of investment companies.

What we are looking for at present is some kind of investment by which it may be possible to secure the compound interest advantage that is achieved by the reserve fund policy for ordinary shareholders, while eliminating as far as possible the industrial risk which we saw to be inseparable from the privilege of ownership in any industrial enterprise.

Such investments are to be found in the shares of banks and discount companies and of insurance companies. Their service to industry is obvious, since industry as at present