|Excess %|Imports.|Exports.|
United Kingdom ..| 57 | 2886 | 1835 |
Germany ……….| 20 | 1824 | 1523 |
Netherlands ……| 30 | 1130 | 873 |
France …… | 12 | 1089 | 975 |
Belgium ……….| 33 | 642 | 484 |
Italy …………| 68 | 562 | 334 |
Aust.-Hung …….| 7 | 487 | 457 |
Switzerland ……| 44 | 287 | 200 |
Spain …………| 10 | 168 | 153 |
Sweden ………..| 26 | 163 | 129 |
Denmark ……….| 16 | 191 | 165 |
Norway ………..| 58 | 101 | 64 |
Canada ………..| 34 | 298 | 222 |
China …………| 43 | 254 | 178 |
Turkey ………..| 59 | 135 | 85 |
COUNTRIES HAVING EXCESS OF EXPORTS OF MERCHANDISE
|Imports.|Exports.|Excess %|
United States ….| 1312 | 1638 | 25 |
Russia ………..| 436 | 542 | 24 |
British Colonies .| 558 | 615 | 5 |
British India ….| 418 | 486 | 16 |
Australasia ……| 242 | 302 | 25 |
Japan …………| 196 | 206 | 5 |
Cuba ………….| 84 | 116 | 40 |
Mexico ………..| 78 | 115 | 42 |
San Domingo ……| 5 | 10 | 100 |
Argentina ……..| 263 | 353 | 34 |
Brazil ………..| 172 | 214 | 24 |
Chile …………| 98 | 116 | 18 |
Uruguay ……….| 35 | 37 | 6 |
Bolivia ……….| 21 | 24 | 14 |
Venezuela …. | 10 | 15 | 50 |
#§ 7. Balance of merchandise movements.# The first group evidently consists of the older, creditor countries which are drawing some of the income of their investments from abroad each year in the form of food and of raw materials of many kinds. The second group includes countries of very diverse conditions, possibly all having some investments abroad; Italy receives large imports in return for the services of many Italians working in foreign countries, and the three Scandinavian countries (especially Norway) carry on a large commerce for other nations which is paid for in these ways. The excess of imports in the third group probably is the result of new investments that were being made in Canada by English and American capitalists, in Turkey especially by Germans, and in China by Americans and Europeans.
The countries in the second column are doubtless on the whole debtors, but in varying degrees. The excess exports of some are insufficient even to pay all the current interest, and they are borrowing still more (possibly the British colonies, Japan and several South American countries); others have ceased to borrow and are simply paying interest; whereas the United States at least with its excess of exports was at this time both paying interest and getting out of debt. With the outbreak of the war in 1914 the United States began rapidly buying up its foreign-held securities, and events are fast making it a creditor nation. Its imports must therefore in future more nearly equal if not exceed its exports, the actual outcome being dependent as well on various other items in the balance as on those here considered.
§ 8. #Cancelation of foreign indebtedness.# In the international business of any two important countries to-day, such as England and America, the number of credit and debit transactions is enormous. If each trader had to attend to the forwarding of the means of payment for his purchases he would, of course, deduct from the amount of his indebtedness the amount due him from his foreign correspondent, and might from time to time "remit" the balance in the form of a shipment of gold. This simple offsetting and cancelation of debits and credits would greatly limit the amount of gold that would have to be shipped. But still, under such conditions, there must be a very large number of shipments of gold by different individuals, and a large proportion of these shipments would be going in opposite directions at the same time. Now a merchant in New York called M may have a balance to pay in London to X and at the same time a merchant in London called Y have a balance to pay in New York to a man called N. If M can buy from N his claim in the form of an order, draft, or bill of exchange, and send it to X, the latter may through his bank collect the sum from Y. In this way a further cancelation of indebtedness would occur.