The same holds good with every form of foreign investment in Latin America--railways, plantations and all else. So I would venture to say, if we expect always to draw dividends from our investments in Spanish America, let us wisely have more regard to the social and economic status of the worker. How, practically, that is to be done is a question of our own intelligence. Perhaps some advisory body might be instituted in London, financed by the large British interests in Latin America, such as would devote itself to the study of the conditions of life surrounding the workers in those lands, or at least as regards their own employees. I offer this suggestion on behalf of the poorer folk of these lands. They generally look to the "Ingles" as a person of influence--one, moreover, whose pockets are always, they imagine, lined with silver! In their way these folk believe that _noblesse oblige_ (in their own term for that concept) is a universal axiom of the Englishman, and there is something almost pathetic in this faith in a foreigner. Let us beware that by negligence or greed we do not forfeit this esteem. I offer the suggestion also as a contributory safeguard to British investment here. Apart from the attitude of the individual worker in these communities in relation to foreign capital, we shall be well advised to keep in touch with the attitude not only of the workers as a whole but of the Governments which control national affairs. Of late there have been certain indications that a policy of antagonism towards foreign capital and enterprises is growing up. It has been very marked in Mexico, but in Argentina, a much more advanced community, and in the Brazilian States it is at times disquieting. It is not so much antagonism, however, as a feeling of dissatisfaction that the earnings from national or public works should go to foreign shareholders. The Argentine railways of late years have felt a good deal this disturbing element; as also the burden of numerous strikes. British capital was the pioneer in building railways in the republic, and has conferred enormous benefit upon it. More than 15,000 miles of line are owned by British companies, or three times as much as the remaining mileage, which is French and national mainly. Whilst these railways are, it is generally conceded, worked and controlled as economically and efficiently as ever, it cannot be said that they are undertakings so profitable as should cause envious eyes to be cast upon them. For the past few years the average net return of these British-owned railways in Argentina has not exceeded the modest amount of three and a half per cent. This is a low return, especially for Argentina, where two or three times the yield is obtained on ordinary safe mortgages on houses and land. The British-owned banks in South America may yield twenty per cent. profit. Yet voices arise in the land, asking why the transport of the country should be conducted for the interests of foreign