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 international
 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 operations
 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;