To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter
of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved
with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted
the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right
in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that
the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent
delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered
illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance
the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am
fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it
too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural
resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to
"develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation
of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even
then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused
Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence
upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have
attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of
beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be
remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power.
We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and
satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their
principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international
bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys
borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had
to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person.
Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own
government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign
investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has