Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/266

 holders the business of choosing risks and taking advantage of market movements. They are affected by industrial risks through the industrial securities that they hold, but it is their business to protect their shareholders against them by wise diversification and selection; and the success of some of the best shows that this business can be done under wise management. After laying his foundation with British Government securities and perhaps very cautiously adding a layer or two of Dominion and foreign public debts, with a careful eye to political risk, and well-chosen industrial and trust company debts, the investor might then be well advised to build his ground floor with shares in banks, discount companies, insurance companies and trust companies, always applying the test of the persistence with which they pursue the reserve fund policy.

One drawback attached to these securities is that the market in them is far from free, and in the case of trust companies is almost non-existent; and there is also a liability on the majority of bank, discount and insurance shares. Of late, however, issues of fully paid shares, of small denomination, have been made by companies of this class, and since the liability of shareholders is now almost a