I'HE UNITED STATES, III. AFTER 1914 329 
denominations proved to be the initial stage in a remarkable 
spread of the investment tradition. The bourgeois attitude per- 
meated the social body as never before in this country or in any 
other. 
At the date of writing (1926) it still remains to be seen how great 
and permanent were the changes in the international loan account 
between the United States and other countries. Quite possibly 
the eventual outcome will prove to be less revolutionary than 
these first experiences seem to indicate. Time may bring relapses 
and reactions. The domestic demand for investment funds will 
continue to compete with the foreign, and may easily be so strong 
as to put a damper on the export of capital. In foreign countries 
the stage will be reached in due time when their most pressing 
needs for reconstruction are satisfied and their own savings begin 
to be more nearly adequate for their ordinary capital operations. 
But the pre-war conditions are clearly gone. Henceforth lending 
operations and the loan account must play a quite different part 
from what they did before 1914. And when all is said, the rapidity 
of the changes which took place, no less than their extent, remain 
extraordinary. 
On the third general problem of this latest period, the new 
situation as regards the international flow of gold, the essential 
facts have been indicated already.! The great imports of the 
metal during the war itself were succeeded during the year after 
its close by others no less great, tho spread over a somewhat longer 
time. A temporary reversal of the current, and a sharp one, 
appeared in 1919, when nearly 300 millions went out. But soon 
the main flow was resumed, and during the entire period from 
[919 to 1924 the net amount that poured into the United States 
was nearly 1300 millions.? What signifies for the present inquiry 
is not so much the volume of this movement, extraordinary tho it 
was, as its relation to the general theory of trade balances, specie 
flow, international prices, and international trade. 
I See pp. 309, 318 above. 
! The imports for 1920-24 were 1552 millions ; deducting the exports of 292 
millions in 1919, we have a net import of 1260 millions.