$23,000,000,000

The Department of Commerce, quick at figures, last week announced the amount that foreign nations had borrowed from the U. S. during 1927. The sum was $1,574,960,575, the highest ever borrowed in one year. And the year was the fifth that money loaned on foreign securities had surpassed a billion dollars. Those years were 1916 (during the War), 1924, 1925, 1926. For 1926 the sum had been $1,318,554,850.

Grosvenor Monro Jones who as head of the Department of Commerce's finance & investment division directed the figuring, estimated that foreign corporations (governmental and private) and foreign governments owe the U. S. $13,000,000,000. That is exclusive of the $10,000,000,000 owed on War loans made directly by the U. S. Government to foreign governments. The exact totals are impossible to state because, although most foreign securities are sold publicly by U. S. investment bankers, a certain number are distributed privately.