Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/76

 always shall in looking at all kinds of securities, as the real test on which the desirability of municipal debts is based, and though comparisons may be made of the rates in the pound charged by the different municipalities, they have little meaning unless the investor who studies them is fully informed concerning local conditions and the prosperity and prospects of the industries and trades of the place.

In considering individual securities offered by the local authorities, we have to make sure of the same points that were indicated as essential with regard to Home Government stocks. That is, we want to be sure that the stock is either definitely redeemable at a date or definitely irredeemable, and that redeemable means that it must be paid off, and not that the debtor has the right to redeem if it suits him. Also that there is no option in his favour of redemption if it suits him, at any time after such and such a date. And that the debtor is bound under the terms of the issue to set aside each year a sum that will suffice to provide for redemption of the debt on maturity. Rateable value has been shown to be a not wholly impregnable foundation on which to raise a skyscraping erection of debt; and there is all the more reason for preferring the debts of a municipality whose total debt is small as com-