We shall, we imagine, soon see a great many foreign
loans on the Stock Exchange. The country is full of money seeking in- vestment, and joint-stock enterprise is almost extinct. A Chilian. loan of a million or so was subscribed in a few hours, and the applications for a Russian loan of £12,000,000 yielding about six per cent. overwhelmed the contractors. It is said that many- times the amount was offered. There was a sort of mania, too,. this week, to purchase Welsh mining shares, one mine in parti- cular, the Van, going upwards in great leaps of £10 and £12 a share—three times the original value—and there seems to be no limit to the expectation of profit from laying submarine cables. There are signs, in fact, of a plethora of capital which ought, according to all tradition, to produce an outburst of speculation of some novel kind, perhaps street tramways.
