Finance Public and Private
America as a Lender
WHILE the factors which contributed to the enormous financial and commercial prestige of this country previous to the War were numerous—it might be said innumerable —I suggest that there were a few which stood out with special prominence. One of them was our unique position as an island with a supremely powerful Navy. Another was that the age of the country and its past prosperity gave us vast sources of accumulated wealth, much of which was in the form of foreign securities on which we received tribute each year in the shape of interest payments. Another was the great economic advantage derived from our position in such key industries as coal, iron and steel, while yet another was our unique position as bankers to the world, our loans to foreign borrowers far exceeding those of any other country. Moreover, this last factor was a kind of complementary influence, supplementing and consolidating all the others in the sense that following upon our loans abroad came vast trade orders from abroad. In other words, our loans stimulated our exports.
I must leave to the imagination of the reader or to More competent writers any comments which might be made with regard to the changes which may have taken place in some of these factors since the Great War. It is only concerning the last one, namely, our position as a lending centre, that I will offer a few brief comments.
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