hood" the increase in value and in income from rents is his; if otherwise, he pockets the loss. It is evident at once that in this class of investment, comparative safety is on the side of the creditor, while risk and the chance of the profit are the salt and sugar that savour the dish of the proprietor.
The same distinction, but with an important difference, is to be found in the securities that are dealt in on the stock exchanges. They also confer rights of creditorship, or rights of ownership on those who buy them. Creditorship is enjoyed by holders of Government and municipal securities and of the bonds and debenture stocks of companies engaged in all kinds of industry—including primary production (such as the enterprise of land, plantation and mining companies), manufacture, transport and commerce; holders of these securities are promised a fixed rate of interest, and generally payment at par, or perhaps at a slight premium, at a definite date. Failure to meet the interest charge, or the capital sum at the due date, means an act of bankruptcy which the debtor has many urgent reasons for wishing to avoid; and investment in these creditor securities is thus as safe, when they are obligations issued by solvent and honest Governments and companies, as human ingenuity can make it. The
