326 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
to be placed in the United States; not distress borrowings, or 
short-time purchases on credit, but loans of the permanent sort, 
designed for long-time investment. They were first made in 
large amounts in 1922. A relaxation of the movement came in 
1923, the year of the Ruhr occupation; thereafter it proceeded 
at accelerating pace. The figures for these four years were: 
1922 $637,000,000 
1923 $363,000,000 
1924 $795,000,000 
1925 $920.000.000 
Fe 
As with every export of capital, the immediate effect was a 
swelling of the debit side of the account. A considerable offset 
on the other side arose because some loans of earlier date, chiefly 
loans which had been contracted by foreigners during the war, 
were repaid. And as part of the capital movement there 
must be reckoned the purchases and sales of securities in the 
open market. Transactions of this kind, as it happened, were 
made in both directions during the years in question. As has 
already been noted, the unsettled conditions of European countries 
led to the so-called “flight of capital” from various parts of the 
Continent, taking the form (in good part) of the purchase of Amer- 
ican securities by uneasy property owners. On the other hand, 
venturesome Americans bought European securities in the expec- 
tation of profit from a future rise in their prices, partly for specu- 
lative turns, partly with a view to long-continued holding with 
invigorated management. The balance of the entire capital 
movement thus fluctuated from year to year; in 1923 it was even 
against the United States.! Comparing this capital movement 
with the interest payments, it appears that while the country had 
become a receiver of interest on its loans of the war and post-war 
periods, the capital sums which it was sending out exceeded the 
net sums due for interest. 
This new situation of the United States is a curious phenomenon, 
as surprising as any in this whole train of surprising events. 
1 See footnote at the bottom of next page.