ABSTRACT
The importance of the work, and in particular that of G. Paish and A. H. Imlah, becomes evident when a research aims specifically to estimate the value of the stock of Britain's foreign investments in that period. In Arndt first contribution D. C. Platt explicitly declared that he aimed simply at correcting the overestimation which has arisen from calculations for the holding of overseas securities in Britain. The main force of Platt's criticism fell on the estimate of the stock of foreign capital attributed to Great Britain about the 1870s. Platt wanted to update the estimate of Britain's foreign wealth to the outbreak of the First World War, just as he had done for the items with a downward adjustment. Therefore there exist real and convincing arguments to explain a large part of the credit side of Britain's balance of payments which Imlah measured by applying a variable percentage to the total value of traded good.
