rtunes out of
it, that is really responsible for their doing so, by reason of its own
greed and stupidity. Because it will not take the trouble to find out
how to spend or invest its money, it asks those who are clever enough to
batten on its foibles, to sell it bad stuff and bad securities, and then
feels hurt because it has a pain in its inside, or a worthless bond at
its banker's, while the producers thereof are founding county families.
If the public would learn the A B C of investment, and also learn that
there is an essential difference between investment and speculation,
that they will not blend easily but are likely to spoil one another if
one tries to mix them, then the whole business of loan issuing and
company promotion would be on a sounder basis, with less risk to those
who handle it, and less temptation to them to try for big profits out of
bad ventures. But as long as

"the fool multitude that choose by show"

give more attention to the size of an advertisement than to the merits
of the security that it offers, the profits of those who cater for its
weaknesses will wax fat.

When all has been said that can be urged against the record of
international finance, the fact remains that from the purely material
point of view it has done a great work in increasing the wealth of
mankind. It is true that capital has often been wasted by being lent to
corrupt or improvident borrowers for purposes which were either
objectionable in themselves, or which ought to have been financed, if at
all, out of current revenue. It is true, also, that crimes have been
committed, as in the case of the Putumayo horrors, when the money of
English shareholders has been invested in the exploitation of helpless
natives, accompanied by circumstances of atrocious barbarity.
Nevertheless if we compare the record of finance with that of religion
or international politics, it stands out as by far the cleanest of the
influences that have worked upon the mutual relations of the various
groups of mankind. International Finance makes a series of bargains
between one nation and another, for the mutual benefit of each,
complicated by occasional blunders, some robbery, and, in exceptional
cases, horrible brutality. Religion has stained history with the most
ruthless massacres, and the most unspeakable ingenuity in torture, all
devised for the glory of God, and the furtherance of what its devotees
believed to be His word. International politic