indorsed notes of the foreign buyer of our merchandise. The great collapse at the end of 1920 came when the foreign importer found himself unable to sell the imported goods at home, and therefore unable to repay his American short-term loans. But while the process was going on, of advancing American credit to the foreign merchants, it was as true of 1920 as of 1924 that the "American export surplus" was being more than counterbalanced by the international movement of American capital, and the export of gold was witness to it then as now.

This aspect of the present gold-export movement obviously leaves one large uncertainty in the economic outlook. If "redistribution" of our superfluous gold supplies has been conditioned on subscription by the thousands of millions of dollars to European loans, what if the rush of American investors into such securities suddenly ends? There is such a thing as surfeit in any particular kind of investments. There is possible even complete reversal of attitude, such as occurred in 1923 after the previous year's large investments in Europe; either because of tightening money in America, or because of diversion of home capital into expanding domestic trade, or because the accumulated investment fund had been temporarily used up, or because (again as in 1923) political events in Europe put a damper on the enthusiasm of American investors.

Movement of the Future

UCH a turn of affairs would, no doubt, create a considerably altered situation, but that it would wholly reverse the movement of economic and international readjustment is hardly to be supposed. If the past three or four years have taught us anything The Gold in regard to the financial problems left by the Great War, it is that economic relations adapt themselves to economic logic, even when the actual manner of doing so cannot at the time be foreseen by the closest watchers. Whether in the longer future the reaching of permanent equilibrium in international finance, together with redistribution of the American surplus gold, will be effected by the lending of American capital to Europe on a scale not even yet attained, or by such a reversal of the export and import balance as was dimly suggested in our "import surplus months" of 1923, or by other means of settlement as yet unseen and unimagined, must necessarily remain in the field of conjecture.

But that the eventual settlement is as bound (Financial Situation, continued on page 78)

Success

Is Not Spontaneous

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to come as it was in every similar readjustment after the great political and economic upheavals of the past, every thoughtful student of the world's financial history is likely to agree. The events of the past few months cannot fail to add force to the conclusion; not less so when it was possible at the beginning of this year for the experts of a United States Senate committee of inquiry to report, after exhaustive investigation of the foreign situation, that "European countries are now practically all in a position to return to the gold standard without much difficulty."

The Needs of the Small Investor

An advisory service for the proper guidance of investors

COPPER AND BEES

Down in southern Arizona is a man who has made a modest fortune in the last twenty years, raising bees and selling cactus honey. Living within a few miles of him are a score of prospectors who have spent their time looking for copper and gold-seeking a fortune and never attaining much more than a bare living. Only the one had the vision to see the fortune that was above ground, within his grasp if he worked consistently; something not determined by chance or a lucky strike.

Some investors are like the prospectors, always seeking the big return, the easy money. You can read of their losses every day. The sage way to build a dependable income is to invest systematically in securities of reliable concerns bought from financial houses of reputation. Every investor should have a plan. Every plan should be made with the help of a competent adviser. Perhaps your banker will help you. In case the kind of assistance you want is not at hand, the Financial Department of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE is equipped to give you reliable, unprejudiced advice. There is no charge for this service.