Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/90

 perhaps the most important, after the naval and military. They not only did not pay their own debts to belligerents, but did not allow their citizens to do so; and under modern conditions they were evidently quite right. And so anyone who buys the securities of any foreign Government or public body does so with the certainty that if we should go to war with the debtor he would not pay us a shilling's worth of interest as long as the war lasted. The "war risk" attached to all foreign investments is thus a very real factor, as long as the possibility of war lasts; and it is obviously one which is extremely difficult to calculate.

This is the consideration which gives to investments in our own Dominions an advantage over those in all other countries, though the degree of war risk varies very greatly between one foreign country and another.

Apart from it, we have a feeling that the countries of our own race and language are likely to think and act more or less as we should in making sacrifices if necessary to defend their Government and public authorities against default. And the fact that they, nearly all of them, use currencies identical with ours, not only eliminates an element of possible difficulty in making payments, but makes it easier for the conscientious investor to study with intelligence