balance-sheet can make it, with an article of world-wide consumption and fame behind it.
But now let us see what a sour, jaundiced, liverish critic—and it is in this spirit that the prudent investor will scan every financial statement put before him—can say against the attractions of the Bass balance-sheet.
He will begin by pointing out, with perfect truth, a defect that is common to nearly all balance-sheets—all, it may be said, except those in which the assets consist of nothing but cash in hand or at a first-class bank, and securities quoted, and actively dealt in, on the Stock Exchange. This defect is that whereas the liabilities give you figures which are certain facts, the assets are expressed in figures which are, with the exception of the cash and investments mentioned above, to a certain extent a matter of guesswork. The figures may be too high or too low (our liverish friend, of course, will assume that they are too high), but it would be a miracle if any of them proved to be exactly correct if the assets were sold.
Cash is a definite and known amount; securities quoted on the Stock Exchange may reasonably be expected to be sold at or near the prices at which they have lately changed hands. But when we come to half-brewed beer in vats, and still more when we come to
