THE BRITISH DEBIT.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1916, Page 6

THE BRITISH DEBIT.

NOT OVER BURDENSOME. Discussing the ability of Great Britain tc pay its debts, principal and interest, li. 11. Suplec, writing to the New York Time?, says:—"lf the most enlightened man had beta toid in 1702 that in, 181:1 the interest oil eight hundred millions would be duly paid to the day at the bank, he would have been as hard of belief as if he had been told that the Government would be in possession of the lamp of Aladdin or of the purse of Fortunatus. It was, in truth, a gigantic, a fabulous debt; and we can hardly wondei that the cry of despair should have been louder than ever. But again that cry was found to have been as unreasonable as ever. After a few years of exhaustion England recovered herself. Yet. like Addison's, valetudinarian, who continued to whimper that he was dying of consumption till hp became so fat that lie was shamed into silence, she went on complaining that she was sunk in poverty till her wealth showed itself by tokens which made her complaints ridiculous. The beggared, the bankrupt society not only proved able to Keet all its obligations, but while meeting those obligations grew richer and richer so fast that the growth could almost be discerned by the eye. In evorv country we saw wastes recently turned* into gardens; in every city we saw new streets, and squares, and markets, more brilliant lamps, more abundant supplies of water; in the suburbs of every great scat of industry we saw villas multiplying fast, each embosomed in its gay little paradise of lilacs and roses. While shallow politicians were repeating that the energies of the people were being borne down by tile weight of the public burdens, the first journey was performed by steam on a railway. Soon the island Was intersected by railways.' A sum exceeding the whole amount of the. national debt at the end of the American, war was, in a few years, voluntarily 'expended by this ruined people on viaducts, tunnels, embankments,.bridges,, stations, engines. •Meanwhile taxation ya.-. almost" constantly becoming liglrji'/ jriid lighter; yet still the exeheqnc,'full. ° It'may now be allirmed, ws k ,M>ut fear oi >.untradiction, that we find it as easy to pay the interest of eight hundred millions' as our ancestors 'found it a century ago to pay the interest of eighty millions. °