an ordered and civilized society, in which it is no longer possible to
roast an awkward creditor alive, money power is a formidable force. That
a large part of this power is in the hands of a family party, scattered
over all lands in which finance is possible, is another reason why, as I
have already shown, international finance works for peace. The fact of
the existence of the present war, however, shows that the limits of its
power are soon reached, at times when the nations believe that their
honour and safety can only be assured by bloodshed.

A large part of the popular prejudice against financiers may thus be
ascribed to anti-Semitic feeling. We are still like the sailor who was
found beating a Jew as a protest against the Crucifixion, and, when
told that it had happened nearly two thousand years ago, said that he
had only heard of it that morning.

But, when we have purged our minds of this stupid prejudice, we are
still faced by the fact that international finance is often an unclean
business, bad both for the borrower and for the lender and profitable
only to a horde of parasites in the borrowing country, and to those who
handle the loan in the lending country, and get subscriptions to it from
investors who are subsequently sorry that they put their eggs into a
basket with no bottom to it. Under ideal conditions our money is lent by
us, through a first-rate and honourable finance house, to a country
which makes honest use of it in developing its resources and increasing
its power to make and grow things. The loan is taken out from England in
the shape of goods and services required for the equipment of a young
country, and the interest comes in every year in the shape of food and
raw material that feeds us and helps our industry. Such, it may be
asserted with confidence, is the usual course of events, and must have
been so, or England could not have been so greatly enriched by her