The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1865-05-10
National Debts and U. s. Stocks.

week.
National Debts and U. s. Stocks.
The creation of national debts is not n
modern improvement, but the ability of a
great nation TO provide for great debt.
and to make it the most convenient and
best form of personal property, is mod
crn wonder. The debt of Great Bri-
tam was begun by raising million ster-
ling by loan in 1892, and when her con-
test with Louis XIV. was terminated,
the debt had reached fifty millions. Ma
ny statesmen and economists we're then
alarmed ut the great burden which had
been imposed upon the industry of the
country, but when the war of the Aus
TRAN succession had swellcd this amount
to eighty millions, Macaulay says that
historians and orators pronounced the
case TO be desperate. But when war
again broke out, and the national debt
was rnpi 'ly carried up to una hon lrcd
and forty millions, men. of theory and
business both pronouced. that the fatal
day had certainly arrived David Hume
said that, although, by taxing its ener-
gies to the utmost, the country might
live through it, the experiment must new
er be repeated, even a small increase
might be fatal. Granville said the ma
ton must sink under it unless some Dor
ton of the load was borne by the Amer
lean Colonies, and the attempt to impose
this load produced the war of the revolu
ton, and, instead of diminishing, added
another hundred millions to the burden.
Again, says Mncaulay, was England Civ
en- over, but again she was more prosper
Gus than ever before. But when at the
close Of her Napolconic wars in 1916.
this debt had swcllcd up to the enor
nous sum o. over eight hundred millions
sterling, or four thousand three hun
bred millions dollars, or nearly one.
half OF the entire property of the United
Kingdom, the stoutest heart, the firmcst
believer in national progress and national
development, might well have been ap-
pallcd. But in the very face Of this
mountain Of obligation, TO say nothing
Of her vast colonial possessions, the pro-
perty of the British nation has been more
than trcblcd, and her debt is now IL charge
of but II per cent. against it. All that
Great Britain has done in paying Tier
debt, we shall do, and more, with ours.
We have vast territories untouched by
the plow, mines of all precious metals of
which we have hardly opened the doors.
Il population full OF lite, energy, enterprise
and Industry, and the accumula ted wealth
Of money and labor of the old countries
pouring into the lap of our giant and
ever-to-be-united republic. During the
iiercest and most exhausting of all possible
wars, we have demonstrated our national
strcngtb-and all the world over, national
strength is but another name for national
credit. ''As good as United Stocks will
soon be synonymous the world over with
las good as British Consols" For our
part we think L. S. Treasury note,
bearing seven and three tenlhs annual in
terest, is just as much better than British
Consols as the rate of interest is higher
Some of our timid brethren, who shipped
their gold to London and invested in con-
soils, are now glad to sell out and invest
at home at a round loss,-and serves
them right.