Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/143

 (2) That a good and honest Board, such as most companies possess, assisted by the highly trained skill of the auditors, does its best to make full and sufficient provision for depreciation and is in fact likely to err on the side of providing too much rather than too little, with the result that they are flayed by Sir Josiah Stamp for having "hidden reserves" and "profits tucked away";

(3) That since there can be no certitude, it is surely better to understate rather than overstate the value of doubtful assets; and that a good balance-sheet should try to state them at, or below, their realizable value.

(4) That all the dismal vaticinations of the imaginary and imaginative critic about the day when England will be dry and Bass will be brewing ginger beer, and all the present breweries, tied houses, plant, stock, goodwill and book debts will be of problematical value, is beside the mark; because a balance-sheet is not meant to be a prophecy showing what the business is going to be doing in twenty years' time, but a picture of its condition to-day and that all that a