72 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE,
GERMANY.

The Refchs-Marine-Amt, in a report of December, 1905, on “The
Jevelopment of German marine interests during the last decade,”
gave an estimate of German foreign investments, on the basis of consular
 reports. This placed foreign securities in the possession of
German holders at not less than 16,000,000,000 marks ($4,000,000,000),
and the amount of German capital in foreign undertakings, plants,
business enterprises, and participations, at 7,700,000,000 to 9,200,-000,000
 marks ($1,925,000,000 to $2,300,000,000). The report says:
“In these amounts (7,700,000,000. to 9,200,000,000 marks, or $1,925,
000,000 to $2,300,000,000) the current German merchandise credits,
which amount to at least one-fourth to one-third, perhaps even to
one-half, the amount of the yearly German exports—that is, to 1,500,-900,000
 to 2,750,000,000 marks ($375,000,000 to $687,500,000)—are
included only in part, and the same is true of the credits frequently
advanced on account of imports.r Taking the figures as they stand,
they give total foreign investments by Germans, in 1905, of about
24,000,000,000 to 25,000,000,000 marks, or say $6,000,000,000. The
net increase was estimated in 1913 at $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 a
year? On the basis of these figures, German foreign investments
at the beginning of the present war may be taken roughly at $7,500,-000.000
 or $8.500,000,000.

OTHER COUNTRIES.

Belgian foreign investments in 1911 were estimated at 2,700,000,-000
 francs, or about $540,000,000. Foreign investments of Switzerland
 are estimated at about 2,602,000,000 francs ($520,400,000).
The foreign holdings of the Dutch are considerable. The capitalists
of Austria-Hungary have such holdings, and, of course, no country
lacks them altogether; but no other country has an amount comparable
 with the holdings of the English, the French, or the
Yermans.

RELATION OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT TO FOREIGN TRADE.
Large fixed investments in foreign countries have grown chiefly
since 1850. This is the period of the great development in the iron
and steel industry, and of the vast consumption of iron and steel in
fixed plants; first railroads, then tramways, water-power and electric
developments, mining and miscellaneous machinery. The flow of
sapital is very largely from industrial to agricultural states. . It moves
largely in the form of rails and construction material, railroad equipment,
 and machinery; though other manufactured goods also play
Tag. Riesser, The German Great Banks and Their Concentration, pp. 545-546, wanda
Hon published by the National Monetary Commission, 61st Cong., 2d sess, S. Doc. §93.
t Hobson, op. cit,, p. 161,
8 Walter Zollinger, op. cit., pp. 110, 147.