The Stock Exchange has been the scene of some alarm
this week. The heavy and continuous fall in Egyptian Stocks, which has amounted altogether to more than twelve. millions, has embarrassed speculators, who have been forced to
raise money by getting rid of masses of second-rate rail- way shares. Consols have also fallen heavily—for Console —under the impression that Great Britain may be driven to war, and altogether the decline in values is reckoned at more than twenty-five millions. That decline is not all loss, it is true ; but still it makes all who hold Stocks feel poorer ; it embarrasses Banks, whose managers are compelled either to demand more margin, or to call in loans ; and it inter- rupts all kinds of industrial speculation. Fortunately, money is unusually cheap, and there is no sign either of panic or of the spread of disaster beyond the Stock Exchange. Whether the panic is unreasonable, is matter of opinion, but it appears cer- tain that however the crisis may end, it will be some years before Egypt is able to discharge all her obligations without fresh loans. The Treasury of Cairo will feel the exodus of all Europeans a year hence more sharply than• it does now, while there is always the chance that Great Britain ray protect the Canal only, and leave Egypt to its own devices.
