The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-02

surd to speak of the United States as a creditor nation until this debt which we now owe citizens abroad has been ab- sorbed by the United States or paid off.
 But from another point of view we are rapidly becoming a great creditor nation. There are reasons for inferring that in the course of the next F months we shall lend to other nations hundreds of millions of dollars. No other interpretation is made by leaders in the financial district of our recent underwriting of a loan is- sued by the Dominion of Canada and an- other by France. These are looked upon as the beginning of what may prove to be stupendous transactions of a similar kind
 Situation Totally Unexpected
 It Is sometimes said that had any one predicted a year ago at this time at the moment when the doors of the Stock ex- change were closed and chaos prevailed that within less than year we should have loaned to foreign countries nearly $270,000,000 he would have been looked upon as victim of incipient paresis. Even as late as mid-September of last year, when American bankers were perfecting abso- lutely original methods whereby gold could be provided with which to meet our obliga- tions on current account, principally to Great Britain. no fnancier ventured :, predict that within few months the sit uatioE would be reversed and we should be lending foreign nations nearly s100, ,00o,- 900 more than we sent out of this country in September of last year, so that it would be possible for the city of New York and for American merchants and import CTS to pay debts in Europe and London then due or about to become due.
 When Japan, at the time of her war with Russia, negotiated large loans in the United States she promised that the money should remain here, or the greater part of 1t, so that it could be drawn against to pay for the supplies Japan bought in this country. We sold Japan commodities of the aggregate value of many millions of dollars, and then we lent her money to pay for them. The nego- tiablo evidence of such debt Japan gave us became one of tn best of Securits. We have already since the autumn of last year lent to beligerent nations an amount of money considerably in excess of the amount we loaned Japan. But as was the case with the Japanese loan, the greater part of this money has been left in the United States so that those who have been buying supplies here would have a fund to draw against with which to make payments
 Canada, our neighbor, our good friend and our second best customer, has been supplied with approximately 500, ,000, ,Oo0 Canada is not buying war supplies in the
 
 been exported to Canada and good use is made of it by the dominion government and by the municipalities and provinces of Canada, exclusively for the maintenance of home industries and the continuation of public works.
 How swiftly some of the neutral na- tions recognized the United States as the best and the freest money market in the world, London for the time being not hold ing that pre-eminent position, is illustrated by propositions which came to the United States from across the sea and from South America as well Canada. The $40, 000Oo00 which we have loaned to Ar genuine will return to us not merely with fair interest, but will serve to facilitate our greatly increasing relations with that country. Bolivia. landlocAed as 1t is, embarrassed as it is by the complete em- bargo upon it's export of tin to Great Brit ain. successfully sought the American money market for loan. The Scandinav- ian peninsula, Sweden and Norway, which