Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/102

 Italy's growing wealth, which improved the credit of both of them so rapidly, were thus accompanied and marked by a reduction of external Government debt, the absence of which has already been noted as a feature of the financial position of the wealthiest countries with the highest credit. And it thus seems safe to conclude that one test of the soundness of overseas debts, as investments, is the pace at which the debtors have been increasing external liabilities America's example has shown that it is possible for a country to expand its resources and development with amazing speed and with the help of foreign capital, without any necessity for its Government to issue loans abroad, and for a country to be using this form of financing its development is clearly an indication of financial weakness—one might almost say moral weakness, were not the word so overworked.

Exception has evidently to be made in the case of dependent countries with an alien administration and a backward population, such as India and the Dutch East Indies. With them there is clearly much more reason for development by means of Government debts, but for' self-governing countries with a number of rich inhabitants, continuous borrowing abroad is a symptom that needs explanation.