STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 527 
which amounts to the fact that it was really the security market 
of New York that in large measure financed our cotton and 
wheat exports. Legislative Catos who occasionally delight in 
demanding the destruction or crippling of the New Vorl Stock 
Exchange would do well tc sonder these statisti. 
+400 
+300 
+200 
+100 
o0— 
~100 - 
-200- 
-300 
-400 
-500 
-600 
mn 
-800 
Figure 61. The Invisible Trade Items of Gold. Credit, and Security Sales 
Showing the relative importance of international security transactions in 1924-1929 
in the U. S. Balance of Trade. Based on net statistics in Appendix XVIII: 
The figures above cited also show the great comparative 
importance of securities as a vehicle for balancing the interna- 
tional trade account.” In every year since 1923, security 
balances were greater than gold and credit balances combined. 
Obviously, therefore, the maintenance of liquid securities 
markets in this country plays a highly important part in 
maintaining the flexibility of our foreign trade, and the more 
negotiable securities can be rendered by stock exchange oper- 
ations the greater will be the strain thereby removed from 
our supplies of gold and bank credit. It was this fact primarily 
that induced the Exchange in 1928 to list the two huge British 
sterling war debt issues. 
Economic Functions of Foreign Security Investments. 
The transformation of the United States into an international 
creditor nation has occurred so swiftly that as yet our modes 
See Appendix XVIII;