One reason why speculation in Consols has been reduced to a minimum is, that speculation has of late years changed its venue. The stock markets now are the field of operations for dealers in the stocks of all nations and all climes. There are a few countries whose names are still withheld from Wetenhall’s list, among which China may be mentioned, but they are few. The extent to which the world has been borrowing within the last quarter of a century may be judged of from the fact that the indebtedness of the States of the world has increased from 1851 to 1873 by £2,218,000,000, the proportion of which belonging to Europe is £1,500,000,000. People have become used to making larger profits, by which we mean that all the world lives better and makes larger incomes than they used to. Consequently they do not care to speculate in stocks unless the fluctuations are somewhat considerable and frequent. The quieter attitude of England towards foreign states for many years past, and the absence of any internal disturbances worth mentioning, has produced much more steadiness in Government securities than was the case earlier in the century. There is not much exaggeration in the remark that a fluctuation of two per cent. in a day in Consols is now witnessed once in a life-time. The process of getting in and getting out of a stock, as a speculation, cannot be profitable when the fluctuations are so small and infrequent. Speculation consequently has shifted from the Consol market, and from the market where the highest class of securities is dealt in, to departments of the Stock Exchange where a bull or a bear stands to make something in a reasonable period, if he chance to be operating the right way. It may be supposed that speculation for this reason has decreased in extent. The contrary is the fact, speculators having simply taken up new ground, as they found it useless for any purpose to speculate in stocks in which the fluctuations were so small. [Sidenote: HIGH CLASS STOCKS MORE FIRMLY HELD THAN FORMERLY.]