The St. Johns herald., 1891-10-08
The Creditor Nation.

what Jay Cooke says about the speculation in railroad stocks and bonds. He says that the astute for 1 eigners buy our securities when our market is depressed, and sell them back to us when 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 enor- nous exports of cotton and grain. There is another way to look at this question. The railroads of the United States paid out last year $302, 100000. in interest and divi- dends. 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 resource. But Mir. Cooke says we have reached the point where our European creditors are about paid up, and hereafter we will be able to carry our own se- curities. If foreigners carry some of ours we may be able to 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 in- terest and dividends will be ours, and will be added to the home cap ital available for the development of our resources. There is more in this than appears on the surface. It is one of the means by which England, the great "creditor nation" IS able to grow steadily richer, when her list of imports and exports does not show the gain. That country has mortgage on large part of the earth, and from it the interest is forever flowing into her coffers. She exacts payment in gold, and in this way is able to create an enor- nous demand for the yellow metal. In this demand she is memorable, and the enormous sums due her in all parts of the world enable her, by this single demand, to give con- stant and enforced employment to very large part of the gold stock of the world. She persists in this, even when it puts enormous bur- dens on the dependencies of the Empire which she is laboring to develop. India has to pay the home government $75,000,000 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 the position of "the creditor nation," England makes double profit: first, enor- nous sums of interest come into her coffers, and then her money is made more valuable than the money of most of the human race. To this imperial policy we in America have contributed our aid first, by borrowing enormous sums of mon- ey in England, and second, by help ing her to make gold the only mon- ey that will settle balances between nations. It is strange that we have done this, when nine-tenths of the silver is produced by America. Now, suppose we reverse the pro- cess. Suppose, first, that we quit borrowing and keep all the interest and dividends at home. Then sup pose We arrange with the people of Mexico, South and Central Ameri- ca, who number about sixty mill- ions, to coin the standard dollar in the same ratio as the United States. Then suppose France, who has more silver than any nation on the earth, and is obliged to protect it, should be invited to join the Amer ican 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 100000 people. Then England would no longer be able to force