NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 196, 29 November 1872, Page 6

NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS.

Iri an able article cm the increase of national indebtedness of late years throughout the world <?enerall/, the ' Fall Mall Gazette ' remarks : as follows :

The advantage which, for some rea- '■ son or other, Governments nowadays enjoy over every other, class or' boYrowers, is assuredly extending to Governments of a very extraordinary type. The delicacy of trie distinction V.iicli enables Japan to raise a loan while one is denied.in Honduras, is almost be^. yond appreciation, but it is not ne-' eessary .to single out this or that borrowing Statu' for invidious criticism so long as we have the means of one most curious and instructive comparison be- . fore our eyes. The Turkish Gove.nment is in the mirket for a loan at the same.moment with the French Government, The Sultan seeks to . obtain rather more than eleven millions . to be "guaranteed by the. tithes of the vilayets of tbe D unibe, .; Adri.mople, and Salonica, and .by the sheep tax of \natolia." Now, doubtless, all sorts of unkind things have been said of these repeated Turkish borrowings. It has bjon said that the ■ money raised, or.proposed t.> be raised, - has jiij true or ascertained relation to the income of the ouutry ; that such a system of public accounts as exists in Tu-key is a mere joke; that the interest of the debt is paid out of tbe pro- ' ceeds of successive'loans ; and that the Turks look on the facilities which they recently, enjoyed in obtaining money as , the result, of a divine 'madness with which the merciful Allah has afflicted the infidel to the profit of the true believer. v We accept these charges as neither true nor false, for indeed we more than suspect that there are no materials for an opinion one way or anuther. But we ask the reader to compare the Turkish with another bono whig GovernI merit of the two great Mahommedan Empires; one remains un ler the sway of a native ruler, the other has fallen into the hauds of the English. India is also a borrowing country, and, by a rather singular coincidence, its total national debt is of very much the same amount as that of Turkey. Yet just . let us reflect what infinite pains it has cost to make by far the best governed of Oriental communiiies nationally sol-, vent. There is no question that law and order are a thousand times better secured in India than in Turkey. Its public and private wealth are increasing at an infinitely more rapid rate. Its public accounts are only inferior to those of England and France in accuracy and regularity. The funds it raises are expended not on ironclads, rifled cannon, or palaces, but on public works, and especially on railway?, ret, after all the best science of the day has been applied to the Indian exchequer, how difficult has been the attainment of actual solvency. In all the biographiesof Lord Mayo'which have been recently appearing, the great feat of. his Indian career is declared to be tire courage which he-showed in openly . declaring that he had discovered the adjustment of Indian accounts to have been for several years a delusion, followed up by.his promptitude in com- . polling a restoration of equilibrium. The measures which he adopted as absolutely n.-eessary to this, end are alleged, to have produced the utmost discontent, and. the assertion had at least weight enough allowed it to bring about the appointment of the Com mi tee of the House of Commons ■' on Indian Finance,'which has just announced that it must have-'a third year of sitting. All this infinite labor, and all this painful inquiry have | been needed to enable the best or- | dered of Eastern countries to pay it's way. Yet the absence of every single one of the securities for Indian solvency has hot prevented Turkey from, borrowing in a few years,.as many millions as India has raised during a century of British rule, and a dozen millions more will doubtless be presently added to it, guaranteed by the " sheep tax of Anatolia,"