The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JULY 8, 1929. CAPITAL AND POLITICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, JULY 8, 1929. CAPITAL AND POLITICS.

Up to the close of the nineteenth century Britain was not only the chief creditor nation but the world’s chief investor in foreign fields of enterprise. Since the war, and largely because of circumstances connected with it on arising out of it, the place that Britain once held as premier capitalist among the Powers, says the Auckland Stax, has been taken by the United States; Not only have the Americans lent very great sums to Britain and other European States, but they have been investing their surplus capital on a large scale in oversea commercial and industrial ventures, and they are thus in a position to draw from abroad that annual tribute in the form of interest and dividends that for many years provided a set-off to Britain’s “invisible exports.” and thus helped to balance the national accounts. It seems clear that within the past twelve months the tendency to borrow from the United States, either by way of direct loan or in the form, of capital secured for investment, lias received a distinct check. For Britain and most of the European countries are now recovering rapidly from the effects of the w r ar, and are able to depend more upon their own

filnancial resources. But American capital is now linding an outlet in another direction on a scale which is already large enough to engage the attention of the authorities of Washington. The Americain Department of Commerce has just announced that between 1914 and 1928 nearly £200,000,000 of American money has been invested in “Far Eastern issues,” Government, provincial and municipal, and this great sum does not include other large, investments of a private nature. As we have already indicated, such loans and investments represent a valuable source of income to the American people and their Government. But this is by no means the most important feature of these new developments. For the history of international affairs in modern times proves conclusively that the investment of capital by a European nation in any relatively undeveloped country has already provided a stimulus or an excuse for the creditor to interfere sooner or later in internal affairs of the debtor people. Readers of H. A. Brailsford’s “War of Steel and Gold” will remember the striking arguments and illustrations that he adduces in support of this view of international relations, and though Bradford no doubt strains and exaggerates his ease unduly, the treatment that China received at the hands of Britain and Germany and France and Russia during the nineteenth century is sufficient to establish the general truth of this principal. It follows from all this that, whether the Americans like it or not, they will be compelled sooner or later, it they go on investing in the Far East, to take an active interest in Asiatic affairs. American doctrines may reiterate as often as they please that American policy is hot Imperialist, and that the American nation holds steadily aloof from all participation in Oriental “entanglements.” If American citizens appeal to "Washington to safeguard their material interests in Eastern lands, the American Government may be forced to do what Britain and France did in Egypt in the period of the Dual Control, what Germany did in Morocco in the days of the Mannesmanns, what all the Powers have done in China whenever their “nationals” or the property of Europeans required defence.