STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 525
money-lender. Despite some serious internal problems, of
which our land and agricultural situation was undoubtedly the
most acute, the stability of our commodity prices and the
revival of our industry and commerce enabled us to enter an
epoch not only of great internal prosperity, but also of vast
and effective international economic effort.
Before the war, the task of marketing American securities
had been largely undertaken by foreign stock exchanges as
well as by the New York Stock Exchange, and for this reason
the volume of business upon the latter market might be said to
have been abnormally small right along. The same thing is,
of course, true of loans made on American security collateral—
as long as extensive loans of this sort were being carried in
London and other foreign centers, to that extent the New York
money market was relieved. In consequence, the increase in
the extent of New York Stock Exchange operations in many
directions after the war, can be largely attributed to the rise of
the United States as a creditor nation, and the accompanying
inevitable tendency for its principal financial center in New
York to handle not only practically all American financing, but
also the distribution of foreign securities.
Thus, after the 1919-21 depression, there began an eco-
nomic process whereby the New World undertook to right the
economic balance of the Old. Basically, most of America’s
efforts in this regard took the specific form of floating and
distributing among investors here the security issues of other
countries. At first, foreign governments themselves proved
the principal borrowers, since governmental finances abroad
had to be restored to health before foreign business enterprise
could possibly prove stable. Thus dollar bond issues of for-
eign governments accumulated rapidly upon the New York
Stock Exchange list, and in 1925 the Governing Committee
enacted special listing requirements for them.2? Next, with
public finances rehabilitated, dollar bond issues of foreign busi-
ness companies were extensively issued here in steadily increas-
"Appendix IVe.
