ABSTRACT
The questions of chief interest in considering financial policy are the objects in view and the extent to which the Government has encouraged, restricted, or controlled the direction of capital investment. Before the war, non-intervention as the basic principle of policy was as widely operative in the financial as in the commercial field. Official restrictions upon the free movement of capital were almost unknown. The Government had, of course, opportunity in informal and often private personal consultations to express its opinion upon proposed issues of foreign loans. Private financial interests were, therefore, well informed about political aspects. The only post-war years free from considerable restrictions upon foreign lending were 1922 to 1924 and 1926 to 1928. Significant in the first of these periods was the issuing of a number of foreign loans with British Government encouragement or guarantee. This chapter discusses the objects and methods of intervention mainly during the first post-war decade, and deals with more recent developments.
