The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-08-18
The German Indemnity-What is a
Willard
From the London Times,

Before the marvellous figures of the
French loan have been etfaced from
memory 10y the next phenomenon OF
this year of wonders, it will be well to
consider more particularly what these
figures really mean. To begin with
what is a milliard?' That, as things
go, is now the unit Of French notation,
and the fact is enough of itself to set us
bordering over the prodigy. 1t has
been said that the keeping of accounts
in small coins conduces 10 public econ
omy, and that something Of the eXpen-
siveness of English life is due to our
reckoning in sovereigns. Well, the
French reckon in francs, a franc being
one-twenty- fifth part of a sovereign, but
it happens in this ease, gs in others,
that some extraordinary compendium
of arithmetical expression is discovered
TO compensate for the minuteness OF
the unit. In the Hindostanee language
there one little word of three letters
signifying a hundred thousand, and an
other of five letters signifying ten mil
lions. Thus though the Hindoos reckon
by rupees, coin equivalent to our
form, they can manage by their terms
of "lacs'' and "crores' TO express q
fabulous number of rupees with great
facility, and just so are the French now
doing with their francs. NJ. Theirs
wants a great many francs but by stat
ing his sums in miliards," he gets
over the amount as easily as possible
He Just wants so many milliards," that
is all and his desire is, indeed, confined
to a few multiples of that particular
measure. Again, then, let us ask, what
is millard?" 1t is q word meaning
one thousand millions, neither more
nor less. The French, therefore, beat
the Hindoos all hollow in the compact
ness of their notation, and, notwith
standing their small coins, can reckon
more simply than we with our unit of
twenty five times the amount. If Mr..
Lowe were to make his budget by mil
lizards" he need only ask for two of
them at the very worst, and one and a
half would be enough perhaps in year
of economy. One "milliard," in short,
of French francs, is equivalent to forty
millions of English sovereigns.
Let us now see what NJ. Theirs has just
obtained. OF the mi,liards' five are
wanted, sooner or later, for the German
indemnity; but NJ. Theirs does not re-
quire so much now, though he had
pretty nearly as many offered. At the
very lowest computation the French
people subscribed to his new loan four
milliards' out Of hand, and on the
very instant. Here is the amount in
figures, 900, 100000 francs. To find
equivalen, numbers We must go to as
Economical distances or English manu-
g. cto
express the distance in miles of some
new planet from the sun. or the yards
of cotton turned out by Lancashire in
some round period of time. 1t would
be quite problem to calculate how
how long it would take to count the
coins out of a treasury, but it is by far
more difficult work to understand how
they can ever come out of French
pockets. Let the reader look at the
matter from another point of view.
Reckoning in round numbers, we may
put the population of France at forty
millions of souls. Now, every man,
woman. and child of these forty mil
lions must have produced hundred
francs to make up these four " mil
liards," or four thousand millions.
Think of that One hundred francs a
head from the whole population, male
and female, gentle and simple, adult
and babes Why, Frenchman is
week, or more, in saving franc. He
could hardly lay by his hundred francs
in couple of years, and this is suppos
ing that everybody does. Upon an av-
erage, every living soul in France must
have had a hoard equal to four sove-
reigns ready for investment, and this at
the very first appeal, and with the GER
tainty that more such invitations would
follow. Instead of there being any
difficulty about the transactions, it was
all the other way. The boarded bullion
OF the country rushed into the public
treasury when the gates were opened,
with force like that of water seeking
It's level. There was as much eagerness
to lend money to the government as
there was to obtain bread during the
famine. Public loan Offices were