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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 30

When Fortune Smiles

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When Fortune Smiles.

When a country or a colony is commercially prosperous; that is to say, when men who are engaged in business pursuits have no difficulty in passing large quantities of orders through their hands, or otherwise transacting business and reaping fair profits, credit is strengthened, and each one is willing and even anxious to pass entries on the most liberal terms. Traders of good business ability enter cheerfully into liabilities because the brisk flow of profits into their hands justifies them in the belief that they can shake them off when they fall due. Farmers borrow money on security of their freeholds, because they find that land carefully improved is capable of yielding twice or even perhaps thrice as much interest as that which is the current rate on borrowed money. Banks seek for an outlet for their surplus capital by giving accommodation to those who appear to be safe customers. And capital is generally in such free and lively circulation that the world rolls merrily along, and properties rise in value, and towns and villages spring up, and progress and prosperity reigns on all sides.