s at home and abroad, and in her shipping. In 1898 the Stock
Exchange estimated British capital invested abroad at 1,900,000,000
pounds. But hand in hand with her foreign investments have grown her
adverse balances of trade. For the ten years ending with 1868, her
average yearly adverse balance was 52,000,000 pounds; ending with 1878,
81,000,000 pounds; ending with 1888, 101,000,000 pounds; and ending with
1898, 133,000,000 pounds. In the single year of 1897 it reached the
portentous sum of 157,000,000 pounds.

But England's adverse balances of trade in themselves are nothing at
which to be frightened. Hitherto they have been paid from out the
earnings of her shipping and the interest on her foreign investments.
But what does cause anxiety, however, is that, relative to the trade
development of other countries, her export trade is falling off, without
a corresponding diminution of her imports, and that her securities and
foreign holdings do not seem able to stand the added strain. These she
is being forced to sell in order to pull even. As the London Times
gloomily remarks, "We are entering the twentieth century on the down
grade, after a prolonged period of business activity, high wages, high
profits, and overflowing revenue." In other words, the mighty grasp
England held over the resources and capital of the world is being
relaxed. The control of its commerce and banking is slipping through her
fingers. The sale of her foreign holdings advertises the fact that other
nations are capable of buying them, and, further, that these other
nations are busily producing surplus value.

The movement has become general. Today, passing from country to country,
an ever-increasing tide of capital is welling up. Production is doubling
and quadrupling upon itself. It used to be that the impoverished or
undeveloped nations turned to England when it came to borrowing, but now
Germany is competing keenly with her in this matter. France is not
averse to lending great sums to Russia, and Austria-Hungary has capital
and to spare for foreign holdings.

Nor has the United States failed to pass from the side of the debtor to
that of the creditor nations. She, too, has become wise in the way of
producing surplus value. She has been successful in her efforts to
secure economic emancipation. Possessing but 5 per cent of the world's
population and producing 32 per cent of the world's food supply, she has
been looked upon as the