BRITISH CAPITAL IN THE STATES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 476, 31 May 1890, Page 2

BRITISH CAPITAL IN THE STATES.

One of the wonders of the age, if wg look at the little spot on the map known as Great Britain, is the tremendous wealth-creative power of its people. Tin y pre the world’s creditors. Just, as they are planting themselves in every part of the earth, so the overflow of their capital is pioving cut in steady streams east, west, north, and south to give life to commerce in other countries. Of all countries in the world, however, one would think" that America would he free from the invasion of British capital, but a return has just been compiled which shows, that duripg the lasj; pigbtp.m months £40,000,000 of British niqney has been invested in the States, mostly by the transference of industrial concerns from native capitalists to English. Writing on this subject, the New Zealand Times of a recent date refers to the movement of capital as indicating the superiority of Protection over and that capitalists prefer America as a field for investment simply because of the advantages supposed to fie derived from a restrictive fiscal policy. But an intelligent and comprehensive survey of the position does not tend to heap opt such a contention. To accept phpt inference is to forget jdiat it i§ in the freetrade country and under frectrade auspices, that this enormous surplus capital is created to he scattered over the world, arpl iliat if ‘‘ she (England) was gradually coming to own the United States by• purchase,” as an American paper says slip is ? the purchase jnone.y has not been made ip Protectionist America, but by the alchemy of Frcjetrade. No capital is being withdrawn Iron) England that might hq invested there. The solid expansion of its commerce proves tliqt. It is drawn from the superabundance of the wealth which results from the operations of British capital in all parts of the and it is as natural for it to sjqek owlets as for the surplus population to do so. In one respect, however, thq qapiiul which is being poured into America is likely to he more calamitous than a pla. ue. It is being attracted now specially to that country by the facility that exists for the establishment of tilists and syn licates. It is a free-booting felonious capital that aims at “ contro’ling” some of (he largest industries of the. States, that completely reverses the nl 1-time principles of robbery, hv substituting t-he'wholesale legal plunder oi? the poor by the rich fo.r the robbery of the rich by the poor,. In a Freetrade country the poor are practically safe from this species of tyranny, at anv rate, for, where commerce is as free to go an I eoiiie as the breezes, monopolies are a]inos£ m possible.