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carried through by means of the usual accompaniments
So far it was only a case of a thoroughly speculative transaction
carried through by means of the usual accompaniments. A defaulting State
believed to be possessed of great potential wealth, thought, or was
induced to think, that by building a railway it could tap that wealth.
The whole thing was a pure possibility. If the loan had been
successfully placed at the issue price it would have sufficed to build
the first section (fifty-three miles) of railway, and to leave something
over for work in the mahogany forests. It is barely possible that in
time the railway might have enabled the Government to produce enough
stuff out of its forests to meet the charges of the loan. But the
possibility was so remote that the terms offered had to be so liberal
that they frightened the public, which happened to be in a sensible
mood, until it was induced to buy by the creation of a market on the
Stock Exchange; the employment of intermediaries on disastrous terms,
and finally default, as soon as the loan charge could no longer be paid
out of the proceeds of the loan, completed the tale.

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