Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/136

 gone through so many editions. In his chapter on the Credit side of Balance-sheets, he begins by insisting that there are strong reasons for not calling it the Assets side, and says the "professional accountants, who themselves used the term for many years, have lately been impressed at the meaning endeavoured to be put upon it, it never having previously occurred to them that anyone could truthfully assert that they believed that the amounts opposite the items on the credit side of a balance-sheet were their realizable actual value."

But this actual realizable value seems to be just what Sir Josiah Stamp thinks that a shareholder ought to be able to see. Moreover, Mr. Pixley himself, on the very next page, says that "at the same time it must not be understood that an auditor has simply to ascertain that the amounts taken credit for in the balance-sheet in respect of property or assets are merely their book values. Prior to the auditor commencing his duties, the figures to be inserted in respect of these items have, of course, to be settled by the directors, and the groundwork upon which they have to arrive at the figure to be taken credit for in respect of each item is, of course, the balances of the Ledger Accounts. This is also the basis from