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194 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
technically not known as dealers, but who are, in fact,
frequently ready to buy and to sell. It is necessary,
however, to state the point separately when large
masses of securities have come to be in existence with-
out any speculative dealing taking place in them. It
may .be possible to use the average prices of such
securities from time to time to show the general level
of interest which prevails; but experience has shown
that no such average, however ascertained, can be
taken as a real test of market price in the same way
that the price of a security fulfulling all the conditions
above stated can be taken. In the latter case the
market price is a safe guide; in no other case can it
be taken as a complete guide, especially as regards
any particular stock, when a considerable change is
about to occur in the quantity of the stock itself or in
the general conditions of the market. Without such a
gliig,e, an enormous addition to the supply of any
stock implies, in fact, the making of a new market,
for which new customers and operators have to be
found.

Formerly, and until quite recent years, the above
w~re especially the conditions of the market for Con-
sols. English Government securities in the early years
of the century were of very great amount-£ 900,000,000
sterling after the close of the great war in 1815. They
were also almost the whole market for securities at the
time, occupying, at any rate, not merely a pre-eminent
but a predominant position. The funds were then
something sui generis, spoken of in contrast with land,
houses, and other investments not on the Stock Ex-
change. Even a quarter of a century ago Consols still
occupied a leading place. The debt was then still
£800,000,000, and the funded debt alone about
£74°,000,000. No doubt even then Consols were be-
ginning to be thrust aside by other great markets,-
the English railway market, the market for American
Government and other securities, the market for vari-