ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the circuits of financial mediation successive generations of London's financial class have created. The transition of London's financial interest from a local funding mechanism was established by this circuit: agricultural rents and profits from sale deposited locally; these deposits moved in part to London; and used to fund government expenditure and the markets in commodities. Profits can be realised outside the nation where they are generated: so it was with the profits from South African gold and diamond mines which were partly realised in London; for the Indian cotton tea and cotton crops; and for the US railroad building enterprises. The structure of international financial mediation was rapidly evolving: it had been dominated by the activities of larger banks cycling the surpluses of, for example, the oil-producing companies into financial support for national and international trade and production and government debt.
