International Finance | by Hartley Withers

Finance, in the sense in which it will be used in this book, means the machinery of money dealing. That is, the machinery by which money which you and I save is put together and lent out to people who want to borrow it. Finance becomes international when our money is lent to borrowers in other countries, or when people in England, who want to start an enterprise, get some or all of the money that they need, in order to do so, from lenders oversea. The biggest borrowers of money, in most countries, are the Governments, and so international finance is largely concerned with lending by the citizens of one country to the Governments of others, for the purpose of developing their wealth, building railways and harbours or otherwise increasing their power to produce.

"While man cannot live by bread alone.
he cannot go on living, even a good life
if he really falls short of bread."

Prof. J. L. Myers

Preface

Responsibility for the appearance of this book--but not for its contents--lies with the Council for the Study of International Relations, which asked me to write one explaining what the City ...

Preface

Responsibility for the appearance of this book--but not for its contents--lies with the Council for the Study of International Relations, which asked me to write one explaining what the City ...

Chapter I. Capital And Its Reward

Finance, in the sense in which it will be used in this book, means the machinery of money dealing. That is, the machinery by which money which you and I save is put together and lent out to people ...

Capital And Its Reward. Part 2

An interesting book has lately appeared in America, called Income, in which the writer, Dr. Scott Nearing, of the University of Pennsylvania, draws a very sharp distinction between service ...

Capital And Its Reward. Part 3

But when Dr. Nearing points out that the income of the ten thousand dollars would be equally secure if the owner of them had them left him by his father or given him by his uncle, then at last he ...

Capital And Its Reward. Part 4

Hence it is that when some of those who question the right of capital to its reward, do so on the ground that capital is often acquired by questionable means, they are barking up the wrong tree. ...

Chapter II. Banking Machinery

Capital, then, is wealth invested in industry, finance is the machinery by which this process of investment is carried out, and international finance is the machinery by which the wealth of one ...

Banking Machinery. Part 2

If they and their work ceased, we should all starve, and the financiers would have nothing behind the pieces of paper that they handle. If finance and the financiers were suddenly to cease, there ...

Banking Machinery. Part 3

With the Bank of England thus acting as a centre to the system, there has grown up around it a circle of the great joint stock banks, which provide credit and currency for commerce and finance by ...

Chapter III. Investments And Securities

So far we have only considered what happens to the money of those who save as long as it is left in the hands of their bankers, and we have seen that it is only likely to be employed ...

Investments And Securities. Part 2

To take a practical example, let us suppose that the King of Ruritania is informed by his Minister of Marine that a battleship must at once be added to its fleet because his next door neighbour ...

Investments And Securities. Part 3

Such being the terms of the loan we may be justified in supposingif Ruritania has a clean record in its treatment of its creditors, and if the issuing firm is one that can be relied on to ...

Investments And Securities. Part 4

All these variations in the position of the shareholder, however, do not alter the great essential difference between him and the creditor, the man who lends money to a Government or enterprise ...

Chapter IV. Finance And Trade

We have seen that finance becomes international when capital goes abroad, by being lent by investors in one country to borrowers in another, or by being invested in enterprises formed to carry on ...

Finance And Trade. Part 2

In the eighteenth century a great outburst of gambling in the East Indian and South Sea companies, and a horde of less notorious concerns was a short-lived episode which must have helped for a ...

Finance And Trade. Part 3

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 ...

Finance And Trade. Part 4

Going back to our doctor, who lends railway material to an Australian colony, we see that every year for each 100 lent the colony has to send him 4. This it can only do if its mines ...

Chapter V. The Benefits Of International Finance

When once we have recognized how close is the connection between finance and trade, we have gone a long way towards seeing the greatness of the service that finance renders to mankind, whether it ...

The Benefits Of International Finance. Part 2

For the present we are concerned with the benefits of international finance, which have been shown to begin with its enormous importance as the handmaid of international trade. Trade between ...

The Benefits Of International Finance. Part 3

Perhaps I have a weakness for financiers, but if so it is entitled to some respect, because it is based on closer knowledge of them than is owned by most of their critics. For years it was my ...

The Benefits Of International Finance. Part 4

In South Africa there was no question of default, or of suffering bondholders. There was a highly prosperous mining industry in a country that had formerly belonged to us, and had been given back ...

Chapter VI. The Evils Of International Finance

No one who writes of the evils of international finance runs any risk of being gravelled for lack of matter. The theme is one that has been copiously developed, in a variety of keys by all sorts ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 2

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,...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 3

The actual cash received on account of this loan appears, though the Committee's figures are difficult to follow, to have come to just over half a million. Out of the half million 16,850 ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 4

There was paid to him for commissions (apart from expenses) on the three loans, out of the above proceeds, the sum of 216,852. He also received out of the same proceeds 41,090, ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 5

From the point of view of national interest there is also much to be said for concluding the transaction. We may, with very good ground, assume that it would also be intimated to the issuing house ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 6

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 Baratariaif we ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 7

There is yet another reason why the attitude of an issuing house, to a borrowing State, should be paternal or even grand-motherly, as compared with the purely business-like attitude of a banker to ...

The Evils Of International Finance. Part 8

If there is failure, partial or complete, then the task of holding the baby is longer and more uncomfortable, the more puny and unattractive it is. If, owing to some accident in the monetary ...

Chapter VII. Nationalism And Finance

So far we have considered the working of International Finance chiefly from the point of view of its effects upon the prosperity and comfort of mankind as a whole and on this country, as the ...

Nationalism And Finance. Part 2

Then came the war, which went far to undermine the great underlying assumption on which the free interchange of capital among nations and the consequent specialization that proceeded from it, was ...

Nationalism And Finance. Part 3

We may seem to have strayed far from the problems of International Finance and the free interchange of capital between countries, but in fact we are in the very middle of them, because they are ...

Chapter VIII. Remedies And Regulations

Apart from the political measures which may be found necessary for the regulation, after the war, of International Finance, it remains to consider what can be done to amend the evils from which it ...

Remedies And Regulations. Part 2

One of the great benefits that the present war is working is that it is teaching young countries to do without continual drafts of fresh capital from the older ones. Instead of being able to ...