In the history of every country, the transitional period between two stages of economic development has been marked by new problems and intricate readjustments of the economic life and machinery. The United States is now passing through the transitional period from a nation whose interests have been largely centered within its own borders to one stepping out into the arena of world competition. For the past twenty years, practically every business change has been a change toward greater and greater production totals. The nation must muster its trained thinkers to reorganize the financial and industrial machinery, as well as to remold the thought of the people in order that the rapid growth of commerce and the necessary readjustments may be facilitated. The development of foreign markets makes imperative a vastly-expanded financial machinery, not alone to offer all possible trade and banking facilities to the international merchants, but to present stable channels through which investment capital may flow to borrowing countries.