ABSTRACT
One of the most significant developments of world economic relationships over the past fifty years has been the gradual assumption by the US of the role previously occupied by the UK as the main source of supply of international capital. Changing economic circumstances and two world wars have been principally responsible for this. In 1914, British overseas investments were worth more than $18 billion, nearly five times the corresponding figure for the US.1 At that time the United Kingdom was the centre of the international capital market, and was herself investing at the rate of nearly 7 per cent of her national income overseas each year, or nearly half her net capital growth.2
