Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 115, 15 October 1901, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

“ Australian ” in the September Review of Reviews deals the at length with the world’s finances of the various finances, countries of the world..

With the exception of the British Empire, he says all countries are more pr less em* barrassed financially. In France the annual deficits in revenue have totalled £260,000,000 . during the last twenty years, and since 1871 there has been added to the national debt no smaller a sum' than r £688,000,000. This was in time of peace. The expenditure is mounting up and the revenue decreasing, apd reduced wheat crop causing a rise In the pride of bread will accentuate the strain and bring about a crisis. The financial, position in Belgians is also serious, and liquidations land bankruptcies are frequent. Germany’s much-written-up prosperity does not

exist, as the country is outhe verge of a banking crisis, which must follow hard on the heels, of the industrial crisis now being passed through. The German banks have most of their securities' in the form of businesses, and -in bad times these are unsaleable- except at an, ehorinbus loss. The lopg-contlnned drought is crippling Russia financially. Thirty millions. of people are face to face with famine, and no improvement, seems, likely. Signs of depaeseion are said to : he noticeable in tbe United States. . A reduction of a value o|\ in the maize high prices for potatoes and .othsf Articles of daily the > probability of dem* bread are likely to oaose a cessation of '’thr‘ recent financial booming. Strkes are tnd tbe period of financial intoxioaioa, is, drawing to a. .close. Or al . Britain is described as the Due * bright spot in the financial vorid*

There ia a certain feeling of uneasiness, but not anything like what prevails on the Continent. The protraction of the war and the steadily mounting up of debt have all tended to depress finances, but Great Britain is fat In advance of Continental countries.