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sight or of information conveyed by a confederate to learn the cards held by the other players. For every pound one player or speculator gains through such judgment or information another player loses a pound, or several other players lose by amounts whose total is a pound.
It may be said that this is mere exaggeration, that it would apply to investment as closely as to speculation, or that it might even be applied to the ordinary transactions of trade, in which those who show good judgment and possess good experience succeed, while the unwise and inexperienced fail. In reality, it might as reasonably be said that wagering on a tradesman's chances of success or failure is as legitimate a way of trying to win money as carrying on trade, or that such wagering between a man who knows nothing about the
tradesman s chances and one who knows a great deal about them would be fair and honest. This last comparison, by the way, is nearer the truth than probably most persons imagine It is singular how little is understood about the real nature of stocks even by the speculative f01k who imagine that they know all about them. Money invested in stock is in reality money lent, and usually money lent for business use. Of course Consols represent money lent to Government, while various foreign investments re- present money lent to foreign Governments, and these can hardly be called business loans But in the main the stocks dealt with in the business columns of our 'papers, the Foreign Market and City Intelligence, are loans to various companies engaged in commercial business.
Now, if we ask why these stocks vary as they do in value, from Consols down to the lowest class of stocks, we find that theoretically the changes correspond with the varying degrees of advantage or of security, or both combined, which the lender recognizes in these different openings for lending his money.
A business company needing money for any particular purpose, and having good credit, will either borrow such and such a sum at a definite rate per cent. for interest, to be paid half-yearly or yearly, or else will nominally borrow a definite sum for a definite time, really receiving only a certain smaller sum (the difference being discount), and repaying the full sum at the expiration of the allotted time. It is manifest that
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