show a balance of gain for the year, and these gains amount to barely 22 millions sterling altogether. Fully three-fourths of this total was realised, as above hinted, on Russians, Spanish, Turks, and Egypts! Only four home markets come out on the right side, their net gains aggregating 5¼ millions sterling. The seventeen principal markets showing balances of loss are domestic and American. The aggregate of their net depreciations is 93 millions, making the final outcome of loss on London stocks, as already stated, fully 70 millions sterling.
Even to people who have no favour for "stock gambling," as they call it, these must be rather impressive facts. Every succeeding year exhibits an increase in the proportion of the national wealth that has passed out of personal control into the control of joint-stock companies. Joint-stock administration is the horse-leech that is continually crying "Give! give!" Or, to use a more pleasant simile, it is the Aaron's rod that swallows up every other form of enterprise. If an intelligent man of business, who had not given much attention to the subject, were stopped in the street and made to say offhand what proportion of the wealth of the United Kingdom he thought was under joint-stock administration at home or abroad, he might guess at a fourth. That would seem to most people a liberal estimate, but it is far below the mark. The total wealth of the United Kingdom is computed by statists at between 8000 and 9000 millions sterling, less 900 millions of national and municipal debt. The most precise estimate is that of Mulhall – namely, 8720 millions, and the details of his calculation stand scrutiny fairly well. Very nearly half the amount of that wealth is represented by securities officially dealt in on the London Stock Exchange; and if we add to them the securities not officially quoted there, we shall have at least another fourth of the national assets. Mr Burdett, in his "Official Intelligence" for 1882, gives details of no less than 1623 securities officially quoted, representing an aggregate nominal capital of 4107 millions sterling, and a paid-up capital of 3634 millions sterling. These did not include foreign stocks, with coupons payable abroad, representing an aggregate value of 2160 millions sterling. It has been found almost impossible to form even a rough estimate of the amount of such foreign stocks held in this country. That large holdings of them do exist here is, however, indisputable. Foreign bankers and brokers deal freely in them, and through them they have got to a considerable extent into the hands of British investors. If British holdings were only one-tenth of the whole, that would represent over 210 millions sterling. Including, therefore, foreign stocks with coupons payable abroad, the securities officially dealt in on the London Stock Exchange in 1882 had a nominal money value estimated at 3850 millions sterling. At the commencement of 1884 the official list was revised, and many moribund securities dropped out. It now contains about 1700 quotations, and the aggregate value of the capital they represent is 3437 millions, or, adding a tenth of the foreign stocks with coupons payable abroad, 3647 millions sterling. An interesting analysis of them is appended to the present article.[1]
- ↑ See table on p. 284.
