The Small Investor.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19785, 25 November 1929, Page 10

The Small Investor.

One of the <>t' any special I ;u*ti% it vin company flotation invariably I is a ftoo'l of letters to the new-papers | n>kinp for tho advice which is j n<.ri!i;i! : ;. :<r:-i pr>-per!y provided l»y tin.i Srrw-k Ther.- K lioiwver. ' <■!!>'- i-.-rv r:,| v ;■ "hii-li it j- nlu'ay- ■ ;ifV to rive to the rn;m wlto himI -c|f a "■ -nudl " inv«-.-t<>r, and that iito inn'-t anil rot to -pecnhitf. It' the

! rii.ini-v to be ii;ve-!cd is a sum which. it* if return-, nothing or is lost, will ill leave the owner above the margin ! oj ;i»xicfv, th<- ri-k- of the inve-tment ] ran he a- irreat a~ he choo-e- to face. If it is a sum which represents all that stands between the owner and calamity, -pci-ulation, a.- oppo-ed to investment, i- ainif-t a crime. And there are of i-Miirse no entirely safe investments i which yield very high rate- of interest. Then- is a jrood deal in recent Kn<rli-h new-p-iper-. especially the more radical one-, about the rights and wrongs of small investors affected by the Ilatry collap-e; and no one would like to say that the -mall investor should not he protected. He is entitled, in the national as well a- his own interests, to the fullest protection the law can

sive him. But the law will always be impotent to save him if he prefers speculation to investment, and forgets that htcrh yields and high security hardly ever go together. The law can in fact do very little for any man (or any woman) who lacks the elementary qualities of prudence and self-control. Nor can it. even when there i< no roguery or fraud—and to forget this is

to forget everything—make any venture pay. It can make fraud more difficult and mgucs less bold, and in England at any rate will soon have achieved this; but it can never make optimism hard-headed and successful. The " small " investor—if his '• small- " ness " moans that he has only a few score or a few hundred pounds saved desperately over a long period of years - should put safety first and be content with one of the many forms of investment which will yield five, six. or occasionally seven per cent.