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 than of certainty, for possible liabilities and expenses at the termination of the lease.

Buildings are a difficult problem. At first sight it would seem that as long as they are well maintained in good working order and all necessary repairs are carried out, they are as good as new, and rather better, for the purposes of the business, because they and the business have grown used to one another and "found" themselves like the ship Dimbula in Mr. Kipling's story. But a business is not put away to mature like wine in a bottle—and even wine needs re-bottling at intervals. A business has to grow and its buildings seem to shrink like a schoolboy's clothes. At the present moment the Bank of England is rebuilding itself, and its determination, for artistic reasons, to preserve its old outside walls is probably adding considerably to the cost of the process.

As to rapidly wasting assets, such as machinery and plant, there is no doubt that they have to be written down fast because in a less or greater number of years they will be worn out; in some cases it is even possible to calculate the life of a machine with some approach to accuracy. But even then the question of obsolescence has to be considered. In some up-to-date works it is boasted that