Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/55

 the same effect on all fixed incomes from securities, annuities, pensions, or any other source; and we have to grope our way to a decision as to whether the investor is bound, for his own safety, to consider the risk of further depreciation on anything like the scale that has lately been witnessed.

If he is, then he should eschew creditor securities altogether, because they are only promises to pay so much in money, and confine himself, in so far as he invests at all on the stock exchange, to ordinary shares and stocks which carry with them ownership of the assets of the companies selected, which will rise in price as the currency depreciates and will return a larger money income owing to the higher prices of the products that are sold. Moreover, he will be tempted to invest less and to spend more upon real property and goods such as can be held as a reserve fund. He will be careful to own his own house, and if he foresees extreme depreciation, a piece of ground on which he can grow as much as possible of his family's food, vegetable and animal; and he will learn to do many things for himself, so as to meet the rising cost of service; also he will be tempted to spend freely on imperishable articles, such as jewellery, which will rise in price if currency depreciates; they are also desirable, as a