A cursory glance over this really formidable Official List brings forcibly to mind London’s supreme position as banker, broker, and clearing house for the wide world, while it emphasizes the constantly increasing overflow of British capital into channels that make for enterprise and development even in the most remote quarters of the globe. Here we find set forth Ceylon, Fiji, Tasmania, and Cape of Good Hope debentures; Stocks of Saskatchewan, Antigua, Johannesburg and the Straits Settlements; Harbor Board Mortgages of Oamaru and Wanganui; Rangoon Sterling Loans; Municipal Stocks of Pernambuco; Budapest, St. Louis, Tokio, Lima and Aarhus; Ecuador salt bonds and bonds of the Grand Duchy of Finland; securities of the Greek Piraeus Larissa Railway, Honduras 10 per cent. loans, loans of Liberia, Persia and Siam, and certificates of the Venezuela Diplomatic Debt. There are securities of the Ionian Bank, the Natal Bank and the Bank of Abyssinia. The Terra del Fuego Development Company is represented, and likewise Amazon Telegraphs, Malacca Rubbers, Singapore Electrics, Rangoon Tramways, Montevideo Water Works, and Sao Paulo Match Factories. Soda and newspapers, theatres and sawmills, hotels and clothiers, sponges and molasses, soaps and cereals, these are some of the items that catch the eye as one glances over the List. What would be found there if all the securities admitted to the House were published in the List may be left to conjecture; and what will this eloquent array of enterprise in figures look like a century hence, if the List continues its present rate of growth? As Great Britain is a country where there is never any difficulty about raising capital for the creation or extension of any business which offers a reasonable probability of large profits, it is natural that new countries where capital is scarce and credit scarcer should turn to London. Thus governments, municipalities, company promoters and manufacturers from all over the world are constantly making application for funds with which to supply their needs. Greek railways, Abyssinian banks, Ceylon tea and Malay rubbers hasten to register themselves at the world’s centre of capital and offer their shares to a public whose taste for all kinds of world-wide industrial and commercial ventures seems never likely to be satiated, since the really good and profitable home enterprises are seldom open to public subscription. The insiders in those bonanzas naturally keep their treasures to themselves and their friends, unless after a time the concern is turned into a limited liability company with good-will as a conspicuous asset and over-capitalization as the dominating motive; then, as elsewhere, the market is invited to assist. But that is another story.