South Africa has been able to finance the current account deficit with relative ease precisely because of the positive growth prospects in South Africa. It also needs to be pointed out that the current account deficit also represents the other side of the coin of robust capital expenditure and the growth the country has been experiencing.
Prices and wages were also more flexible a hundred years ago; at any rate, more flexible than they are now in the majority of countries on the European continent. And, above all, the government had a different perception of its own role. Its core tasks at that time were to frame and protect the domestic legal system and to pursue national interests abroad.