THE CREDITOR NATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3052, 6 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CREDITOR NATION.

There is food for reflection in what Jay Oooke says about the speculation in railroad stocks and bonds. He says that the astute foreign3i'3 buy our securities when our market is depressed, and sell them back

to us when the prices go up. For carrying our securities they make us pay enormous toll, and this cuts down the balance that Europe would have to pay us on our enormous exports of cotton and grain. There

is another way to look at this question. < Tho railroads of the United Slates paid out last year 302,000,000d015. in interest and dividends. Whatever bonds or stocks are held abroad carry the interest and dividends with them, and in that way there is an enormous drain upon our resources. But Mr Cooke says we have reached th« point where our European creditors are about paid up, and hereafter we will be able to carry our own securities. If foreigners carry some of ours wo may be able tu carry as much of the securities of other countries, and that will bring in as much as we send out. If, then, we carry our own securities, all the interest and dividends will be ours, and will be added to the homo capital available for the development of our resources. Thero is more in this than appears on the surface, It is one of tho moans by which England, the great •' creditor nation," is able to rnhv steadily richer, when her list of imports and exports duos not show the gain. That country has a mortgage on a large part of the earth, and from it the interest is for ever flowing into her coffers. She exacts payment in gold, and in this way is able to create an enormous demand for the yellow metal. In this demand she is inexorable, and the enormous sums due to her in all purts of the world enable her by this single demand to give constant and enforced employment to a very large part of the gold stock of the world. She persists in this, even when it puts enormous burdens on the dependencies of the Empire, which she is labouring t:> develop. India has to Day the Home Government 75,000,000 dollars annually, and it must be paid in gold. The great decline in silver increased this burden one-third, but there was no relief. Thus, by tins position of " the creditor nation." England makes a double profit ; first, enormous sums of interest come into her cotters, and then her money is made more valuable than the money of most of the human race. To this imperial policy we ill America have contributed our aid ; first by borrowing enormous sums of money in England, and second, by helping her to make gold the only money that will settle balances between nations. It is strange that we have done this, when ninetenth's of tho silver is produced in America. Now suppose we reverse thn process. Supnose' first, that we quit borrowing and keep all the interest and dividends at home. Then suppose we arrange witli tho neui.lo of -Mexico, South ami Central America who number about G0,000,000, to coin tho standard dollar in the same ratio as the United States. Then suppose Franco, who Iris more silver than any nation on tho earth, and is obliged to protect it, should bo invited to join the monetary union, and bring the Latin union with her. She would be glad to do it, and there would be a bimetallic league embracing 275,000,000 people. Then England would no longer be able to force payment in gold. If she tried it, then she would rapidly loso her trade.- Amorican Paper.