XXV

FINANCE  AND  CREDITS
The  science  of  foreign  banking  is  the  most
difficult  to  understand  of  all  the  departments
of  modern  finance.  It  requires  the  experience
of  experts  whose  knowledge  must  be  the  most
profound  and  complete  and  includes  such  details ­
  as  the  conditions  of  the  world’s  markets,
the  existing  crops,  factory  productions,  local
and  extraneous  political  affairs,  as  well  as  external ­
  and  internal  commerce.
European  financiers  and  merchants  soon
recognized  the  importance  of  reciprocal  banking ­
  arrangements  between  the  home  countries
and  foreign  fields  and  as  early  as  1862,  anticipating ­
  the  growth  of  Latin  America  and
sensing  the  financial  necessities  of  its  future
merchants,  opened  the  London  and  River  Plate
Bank,  which  with  its  ramifications  of  branches
and  agencies  in  Argentine,  Brazil,  Chile,  New
York,  and  various  European  countries  has
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