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 de 
tails as the conditions of the world’s markets, 
the existing crops, factory productions, local 
and extraneous political affairs, as well as ex 
ternal and internal commerce. 
European financiers and merchants soon 
recognized the importance of reciprocal bank 
ing arrangements between the home countries 
and foreign fields and as early as 1862, antici 
pating 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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