ABSTRACT
In the economic development of the Victorian Age international investment played what was widely recognized to be an essential part. But investments which were associated with the development of complementary international trade were so important as to be accepted by public opinion as the characteristic type of international investment. To encourage and facilitate international investment became accordingly a generally accepted maxim of policy in the latter part of the nineteenth century, both in borrowing and in lending countries. Assured exchange stability was an important, if not an essential, condition of large-scale international investment, and hence it became the first desideratum of a monetary system that it should ensure exchange stability. To-day the system of international investment lies shattered, and the idea of international lending is viewed with profound misgiving both in debtor and in creditor countries. The discredit into which international investment has fallen forms an important element in the prevailing trend towards economic nationalism.
