have an unpleasant flavour in the nostrils of the fastidious.

But if we admit the very worst that the most searching critic of
international finance can allege against the proposal that we imagine to
be put forward by the Republic of Barataria--if we admit that a loan to
balance a deficit and pay for ships probably implies wastefulness,
corruption, political rottenness, impecunious Chauvinism and all the
rest of it, the question still arises whether it is the business of an
issuing house to refuse the chance of doing good business for itself and
for the London money-market, because it has reason to believe that the
money lent will not be well spent. In the case supposed, we have seen
that the terms offered and the commission to be made by the intermediary
were such that the latter would have been shown the door. But if these
matters had been satisfactory, ought the proposal to have been rejected
because the loan was to be raised for unproductive purposes?

In other words, is it the business of an issuing house to take care of
the economic morals of its clients, or is it merely concerned to see
that the securities which it offers to the public are well secured? In
ordinary life, and in the relations between moneylender and borrower at
home, no such question could be asked. If I went to my banker and asked
for a loan and gave him security that he thought good enough, it would
not occur to him to ask what I was going to do with the money--whether I
was going to use it in a way that would increase my earning capacity, or
on building myself a billiard room and a conservatory, or on a visit to
Monte Carlo. He would only be concerned with making sure that any of his
depositors' money that he lent to me would be repaid in due course, and
the manner in which I used or abused the funds lent to me would be a
question in which I only was concerned. If it is the business of an
international finance house to be more careful about the use to which