The Times remarks that the returns of British Trade for
the past month show an extraordinary increase, particularly in our exports, which reached £19,811,000, the largest total ever attained. We are told that there is also a distinct increase of profits in almost all branches of business, an assertion strongly confirmed by the steady but determined rise in the value of almost all the favourite investments. This rise is visible not only in railway shares, in which it is due, in part at least, to the increase in their dividends arising from better management, but in almost all foreign stocks, and particularly in all Indian securities, which have reached a preposterous price. Indian Fours are at 104, so that India has now the second best credit in the world. That is pleasant for Anglo-Indians ; but there is nothing in the circumstances of the Empire or the condi- tion of her finances to raise her credit beyond that of every European State, except Great Britain. A rebellion would knock down all these stocks 10 per cent. at a blow.
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