in 1914, of having indulged too freely in the opportunities given them
by the eagerness of English and French investors to place money abroad.
It looked as if in many parts of the earth a time of financial
disillusionment was dawning, the probable result of which would have
been a strong reaction in favour of investment at home. Then came the
war with a short sharp spell of financial chaos followed by a halcyon
period for young countries, which enabled them to sell their products at
greatly increased prices to the warring powers and so to meet their
debt charges with an ease that they had never dreamt of, and even to
find themselves lending, out of the abundance of their war profits,
money to their creditors. America has led the way with a loan of £100
millions to France and England, and Canada has placed 10 millions of
credit at the disposal of the Mother Country. There can be little doubt
that if the war goes on, and the neutral countries continue to pile up
profits by selling food and war materials to the belligerents, many of
them will find it convenient to lend some of their gains to their
customers. America has also been taking the place of France and England
as international moneylenders by financing Argentina; and a great
company has been formed in New York to promote international activity,
on the part of Americans, in foreign countries. "And thus the whirligig
of time," assisted by the eclipse of civilization in Europe, "brings in
his revenges" and turns debtors into creditors. In the meantime it need
hardly be said that investment at home has become for the time being a
matter of patriotic duty for every Englishman, since the financing of
the war has the first and last claim on his savings.

Our present concern, however, is not with the war problems of to-day,
but with the processes of international finance in the past, and
perhaps, before we get to the end, with some attempt to hazard a glimpse
into its arrangements in the future. What was the effect on England, and