To the student of the exchanges this fact is of considerable importance, for, as the rate of exchange between two countries--the price at which bills on the one are sold in the other--must be _fixed by the one that draws and negotiates the bill_, it follows that the exchanges between England and most other countries are controlled from the other side, and that we in London have scarcely part or say in the matter. The rate of exchange, for example, between England and the United States is fixed in New York; between England and Brazil, in Rio; between England and Turkey, in Constantinople; and so on. There may be exceptions, of which the Indian exchange is the most notable, but that is the general rule, and it is one that should be carefully borne in mind. The same fact also supplies a reason for the solicitude with which the foreign trader watches the fluctuations of the exchange, and for the utter indifference with which they are regarded by the British trader. To the former, who intends maybe to draw a few hundred pounds on London in a day or two against the shipment he is preparing, the difference between selling his draft next week instead of this may mean, if the rate should move in his favor, the gain of an additional half per cent.; but to our home manufacturers, who sell their wares in sterling and stipulate for payment in bills on London, the see-saw of rates is but of academic interest. They pay attention to the _course of discount_, because they may have to melt some of their paper before pay-day comes round; but the course of the exchange--the question of the rate rising or falling--hardly concerns them at all. It is not sought to detract from the influence of the English-drawn foreign bill, or, as might be imagined, to explain it away altogether. On the contrary, paper to a considerable amount is, and will continue to be, negotiated on the Royal Exchange (though the total, if compared with that of the paper on London negotiated abroad, would appear quite insignificant).[111] The object in view is merely to bring into prominence, and to impress on the reader, the essential principle that, while the position of every rate of exchange is the outcome of the market conditions _in the two countries combined_, the predominant mass of the dealings take place on the other side, so that, as a consequence, the real significance of the fluctuations can only be grasped by viewing them from the foreign [_e. g._, American] standpoint. THE RECENT RISE OF THE AMERICAN ACCEPTANCE MARKET