The Cosmopolitan Volume 10 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ...not mastered all the elementary principles of the most comprehensive of policies. We were, however, deeply interested in the South American money markets. We had the gravest home reasons for studying the politics of distant peoples, for there has come to pass in these days a wonderful community of the nations of the earth. As the English could not lend any more money to the Turks and Egyptians--or other semi-barbarians--they poured it into South America, and at last ascertained that their investments were speculative rather than substantial, for when they sought to put their hands on their money, it eluded them. They had to have the cash, and as South America could not pay, North America had unexpectedly to take care of the securities the English capitalists had purchased. It has been sharply said that we found England had made us a call loan, and she called it, selling the collateral in her own market to raise the funds; that is, they rolled the paper they had taken into the markets by the bale. This was a severe test of our solvency and the strain has been painful. There have been days of darkness, and when on one of them the news came that the great house of the Barings was in trouble, it seemed that the trumpet of doom had been blown, announcing the end of the world of finance. The house had been concerned in the Southern American speculations, and through enormous expansion was drifting to bankruptcy. The progressive panic was arrested by the most remarkable event in the history of money. TheBank of England came to the rescue of the Barings, and was enabled to do so to a saving extent by the Bank of France. The Bank of England is largely supposed to be part of the government, but it is not. It is under parliamentary authorization and...