The diplomat deals too exclusively with conventional persons, with the sophisticated. The politician deals too exclusively with the successful, with the commercial and exploiting classes. Giolitti's associations were of this class. Like any other _bourgeoisie_ of finance and trade, "big business" in Italy was on the side of the big German battalions, who at this juncture were winning victories. Italy was peculiarly under the influence of German and Austrian finance. One of its leading lending banks--the Banca Commerciale--was a German concern. Most of its newer developments had been accomplished with German capital, were run by German engineers, equipped with German machines. Germany has bitterly reproached her former ally for the "ingratitude" of siding against the people who had brought her prosperity. Gratitude and ingratitude in business transactions are meaningless terms. The lender gets his profit as well as the borrower, usually before the borrower. If Italy has needed German capital, Germany has needed the Italian markets and Italian industries for her capital. The Germans surely have used Italy as their commercial colony. Italy bought her bathtubs, her electric machines, her coal, and her engines from Germany. For the past generation the German commercial traveler has been as common in Italy as the German tourist. In fact, was there ever a German tourist who was not in some sense a commercial agent for the Fatherland?
To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to "develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power. We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person. Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil.