practically confined to loans issued by the British Government. These
loans have been huge in amount but there has been no underwriting, and
brokerages are cut to the bone. Advertising for the second War Loan was
on a great scale, but in proportion to the amount subscribed the cost
of it was probably small, according to the ideals that ruled before the
war. A Colonial loan, or a first-class American railroad bond, almost
places itself, and the profits on the issue to all who handle it are
proportionately low. The more questionable the security, the more it has
to pay for its footing, and the higher are the profits of those who
father it and assist the process of delivery, as long, that is, as the
birth is successfully accomplished.

If there is failure, partial or complete, then the task of holding the
baby is longer and more uncomfortable, the more puny and unattractive it
is. If, owing to some accident in the monetary atmosphere, a Colonial
loan does not go off well, the underwriters who find themselves saddled
with it, can easily borrow on it, in normal times, and know that sooner
or later trustees and other real investors will take it off their hands.
But if it is an issue of some minor European power, or of some not too
opulent South American State, that is coldly received by the investing
public, bankers will want a big margin before they accept it as
security for an advance, and it may take years to find a home for it in
the strong boxes of real investors, and then perhaps only at a price
that will leave the underwriters, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, "a foul way
out." There is thus a logical reason for the higher profits attached to
the more questionable issues, and this reason is found in the greater
risk attached, if failure should ensue.

Thus we arrive at the reply to those who criticize International Finance
on the ground that it puts too big profits into the pockets of those who
handle it. If the profits are big, it is only in the case of loan issues
which carry with them a considerable risk to the reputation of the
fathering firm, and to the pockets of the underwriters, and involve a
responsibility, and in the case of default, an amount of wholly unpaid
work and anxiety for which the big profits made on the opening
proceedings do not nearly compensate. As in the case of the big gains
made by patent pill merchants, and bad novelists, it is the public,
which is so fond of grumbling because other people make fo