PRIVATE CAPITAL 37 



from some other British subject. The different 

 transactions, in most cases, take place in London, 

 and the capitals of the nations concerned are in 

 no wise altered. 



Yet the capital of the individual has, in these 

 cases, certainly moved its location. In the case 

 supposed — the purchase, namely, of Argentine 

 railway stock by a former shareholder in a 

 British railway stock — if a great drought occurred 

 in Argentina, the failure to receive a dividend 

 would soon convince an investor that, though he 

 bought his Argentine stock in London, his capital 

 was really and truly gone abroad. 



Suppose that instead of one seller of the shares 

 of a certain railway system there were simultane- 

 ously many sellers. Then, it is well known, the 

 price of those railway shares will fall, the latest 

 sellers will obtain low prices, and for the time 

 shareholders who refrain from selling possess 

 less capital than they did before. But the rail- 

 way system is the same as before ; its power to 

 transfer people and goods remains unaltered. As 

 national capital the system has the same value 

 it had before, though to the shareholders the 

 capital value of the system is not the same as 

 it was. 



As a national asset the capital value of British 

 railways is upon the whole little different to-day 

 from what it was ten or twelve years ago. But 

 to the shareholders the capital value of those 

 railways is very different from what it was. For 

 ten pounds the shareholder had twelve years 

 ago, he probably now has not seven. Yet the 

 3* 



402181 



