Messrs. Baring will on Monday sell the largest business ever
offered to the public. The Guinness Brewery has been turned into a Limited-Liability Company, and will be sold to the public for six millions sterling in shares, preference shares, and deben- tures. The shares ought, it is said, to yield 14 per cent., and Messrs. Baring evidently expect a rush to buy, for they keep the subscription-list open only from Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon. Their hopes will probably be justified, people who believe in nothing else believing in the demand for beer ; but the result may be affected by the project of Home-rule. Suppose an Irish Parliament should consider English brewing companies gangs of intrusive capitalists competing with the true Irish industry, whisky, and should place a separate excise on beer 1 That risk is not great, perhaps, for Home-rule is not in sight, and Messrs. Guinness's products sell to all mankind ; but it should not be wholly lost sight of by small investors. It is unwise to overlook the Nationalist attack upon the Ulster linen industry, made avowedly because that industry had so enriched the province as to make high rents possible, but made really because the profits had been reaped by a chist.pf men not friendly to Home-rule.
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