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CON SOLS IN A GREAT WAR 195
ous foreign Joans (Turkish, Egyptian, I talian, Russian,
and others, including for a time French Government
securities), and other miscellaneous markets gradually
growing In importance. Still, Consols occupied a pre-
eminent if not a predominant fosition, and they were
the leading market. They stil complied with all the
conditions of a first-class market.
But in the last quarter of a century, and especially
within the last few years, fhe position has been entirely
changed.
I. The Debt is still large, being now about
£630,000,000, or £670,000,000 if we include a stock
which has been separated, called the Local Loans
Stock; but the debts of other Governments have
come to exceed or to approach the English amount.
The Government Debt of France, for instance, is
£1,100,000,000, a sum greatly in excess ofthe present
English Debt. Then we have an Austro-Hungarian
Debt of nearly £600,000,000; Italian, £520,000,000;
Russian, £700,000,000; while there are Debts of
£100,000,000 and £200,000,000 owing by quite a
number of States, for the most part incurred in com-
paratively recent years. The English Debt accord-
ingly does not bold the place it did in the general
markets for securities, and the amount of foreign issues
quoted on the London Stock Exchange alone amounts
to about £2,000,000,000. .
2. The proportion of the Debt itself to the total
securities dealt in has enormously diminished, partly,
as has been seen, by the redemption of the Debt,
though this redemption, while important with reference
to the amount of the Debt, does not seem to be of
importance as compared with the growth of other
securities, which is the main cause of the change in
proportion between the English Debt and those other
securities. This change in proportion has already been
indicated by the facts stated as to foreign Government
Debts and issues. But a fuller statement may be use-
ful. \Vhereas sixty or seventy years ago the English