IN TERMS OF BILLIONS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 73, 25 March 1916, Page 7

IN TERMS OF BILLIONS.

A billion units are believed to be .beyond the capacity of any human mind to grasp, says an American journal. But we are becoming accustomed to speaking of money in terms of three billion, with billion-dollar Congresses, exports of a billion, and the immensity of war finance. A French newspaper, the better to impess its readers with the magnitude of the "loan of victory," exceeding 14,000,000,000 francs in our money 3,000,000,000 doDars—reminds them that "only 1,007,212,000 minutes have elapsed since the death of Christ." That is certainly a striking allusion. Even counted in our money., the aggregate of dollars poured out of the "woollen stocking" of France is more than twice the number of minutes in the centuries since the dawn of the Christian era. The Imperial German. Treasurer has stated that the war debt for his country amounts already to 10,000,000,000dol. and is being added to at the rate of half a billion a month. And with all the belligerents the debt is piling up so that it is counted in billions, while a billion itself cannot be counted or scarcely comprehended.