This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...A recent publication of the Prussian government sets forth that Asia, the greatest of the continents and the most largely peopled, has but 26,890 miles of railway, --about one sixteenth of the mileage of the world. This condition is rapidly changing. A list of operating and projected lines in China, in the "Revue des ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...A recent publication of the Prussian government sets forth that Asia, the greatest of the continents and the most largely peopled, has but 26,890 miles of railway, --about one sixteenth of the mileage of the world. This condition is rapidly changing. A list of operating and projected lines in China, in the "Revue des Banques" for November, 1898, names six lines under English control, one Anglo-German, one Anglo-Italian, two German, four French, one Franco-Belgian, and four Russian lines, including the sections of the trans-Siberian. The construction of these lines will call for many millions of British, French, German, and American savings, and will help to postpone the further fall in the rate of interest. It is doubtful, however, whether all these lines will at once prove remunerative, and whether investors will not suffer again some of the losses which resulted from British investments in South America in the twenties, and from later ventures in American railways, Australian banks and land, and Western farm mortgages. Those investors are likely to be safest who have a government guarantee, by means of a public loan, for the interest on the investment, whether the particular enterprise for which the loan is placed proves successful or not. An important feature of the present policy for finding safe investments for national capital is the control of the field of investment by responsible governments. Many of the great loans in new countries, early in the century, and even down to recent times, like those in the Argentine liepublic and Hayti, have been made chiefly to revolutionary governments, where unwise financiering, official corruption, and the adoption of an irredeemable paper currency have wrecked business and frightened away foreign capital...
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