The rise in the rate of discount and other causes
have produced a perfect panic in the " speculative " securities on the Stock Exchange, Mexican and Greek bonds sinking every day. So sensitive became the market that a letter from M. Stephanos Xenos, containing an assertion from some unknown person in Athens that the Greeks did not intend even to propose a compo- sition, sent those bonds down 4 per cent. There has been no confirmation of the statement, which is, in itself, exceedingly im- probable. The Greeks must have railways, and Count Sponneck is too good a financier not to know that unless Greece recovers her credit, the railways, if contracted for at all, will only be built upon the most ruinous terms. Nobody ever expects Greeks to pay any- thing they can help, but in this case brains are as good as honesty, and repudiation involves as much loss of money as morals.
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