FUTURE BANKING PROBLEMS 395 



countries at war, have heretofore been at the rate of about $4,000,- 

 000,000 per year. Even making all allowances for the diversion of 

 capital from manufacturing industries to war loans and the results of 

 unparalleled economies, it is apparent that the struggle is running far 

 ahead of the normal rate of investment in times of peace, when business 

 is going on and profits are being made by the belligerent nations. It 

 is this disparity between saving power and direct and indirect expendi- 

 tures which has given rise to the ever-present dread of an enormous 

 liquidation of American securities. 



There seems to be a persistent tendency to minimize and under- 

 estimate the foreign holdings of American securities. I have seen no 

 newspaper or magazine which openly expresses doubt as to the extent 

 of these foreign holdings, support its conclusions by reference to the 

 painstaking official and unofficial studies of this subject made by foreign 

 governments and by financial experts in times of peace. And yet 

 every student of finance ought to be familiar with such a study as that 

 made by Sir George Paish for our National Monetary Commission in 

 1909, if not wdth the original sources from which he drew his infor- 

 mation. Five years ago. Sir George, in his scholarly study " The Trade 

 Balance of the United States," declared : 



Great Britain possesses about $3,500,000,000 of American securities. . . . 

 The French investments in the United States, including the Pennsylvania Eail- 

 road and other loans placed in Paris, since 1902, amount to nearly 2,500,000,000 

 francs, or $500,000,000. . . . German bankers place the amount of German 

 investments in American securities at about $1,000,000,000. The amount of 

 Dutch capital in the United States is about $750,000,000. American securities 

 are also held by Belgium, Switzerland and other countries. In the aggregate, 

 the amount of European capital invested in permanent^ securities in the United 

 States is approximately $6,000,000,000. 



The British chancellor of the exchequer stated in the House of Com- 

 mons, on December 1st, that "America, I suppose, owes us nearly 

 £1,000,000,000 in fixed and floating capital," and in a later explanation 

 he declared that he had reference to the British capital invested in the 

 United States and in no way had in mind current American indebted- 

 ness which had been the subject of the discussions between Sir George 

 Paish and the representatives of the United States treasury. We must 

 bear in mind, moreover, that the indirect effect of English holdings of 

 securities of corporations on the North American continent may be 

 ver}' profound. The general manager of the Bank of Montreal, in his 

 address to the stockholders, at the annual meeting held on December 

 7, declared that British investors had, for a considerable period, been 

 placing on the average $25,000,000 per month in Canada, Such in- 

 vestments had ceased with the outbreak of the war, and as he remarked. 



This monetary deprivation, coupled with the necessity of using her earn- 

 ings and income for the purpose of paying Great Britain interest on our indebted- 



1 The italics are mine. 



