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 years ago, not that it was going to stay there till the crack of doom.

And even if all goes well and the debtor is solvent and the property keeps its value, the irregularity with which the interest on mortgages is habitually paid, makes them compare very unfavourably, for an investor who wants to receive his income on certain dates, with Stock Exchange securities. The great majority of public debts and company debts and preferences pay, if at all, on the due date as punctually as the sun rises. The mortgagor pays after such interval as suits his convenience, and usually after having his memory jogged by the mortgagee or his agent.

Land and houses, in spite of the fact that they are real and solid and "cannot run away," and their owners and the owners' creditors can go and look at them and see that they are there, are liable to enormous fluctuations in value both upwards and downwards.

And land and houses are nearly always what the Stock Exchange calls an "all one way market"—either all buyers or all sellers—and consequently difficult and awkward to deal in. A few years ago industrious agents were plastering England with titles to urban freehold plots in the neighbourhood of Canadian cities that were going to rival the growth of Los Angeles