Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-07-13
RUINED SEERS
OF BANKRUPTCY
Prophets of Evil Times Have
Turned Out Evil Prophets
of the Worlds
Decline

writer, once wrote that the favorite in.
| door and outdoor sport of the world was
"fooling the prophets" The game is
childishly simple and Is played by two
characters-humanity and the prophets.
The human race sits idle while the
prophets foretell what the world Is going
to do. Then humanity goes and does the
exact opposite. 1t Is very exhilaratin8
and can be recommended for every occa-
sion, from a surprise party (Which 1t
really is) to a church socable.
The inner joke of the game is that
there are always two sets of prophets,
defining dlametrically opposite plans, so
that the world really has to follow one
of them, or both of them part way. One
thinks of this in connection with prophe-
cies of what is coming after the war.
The abest of English economists, Fran
els w. Hirst, whose analyses and predic-
tlons have delighted readers of the
EVENING LEDGER these many months
has just resigned as editor of the London
Economist, and in q sort of valedlctory
has foretold disaster and ruin for Europe
If tho war does not soon end. The great
nations, he fears, will be bankrupt. While
1t is true that others have held the oppo-
site view. Mr.. Hirst's background de-
serves study. He is an economist, and he
is appalled, by the terrible figure of Eng
lands debt. At the end of this year, at
the present rate, England's national debt
will amount to $4,000, 900, 900, and besides
these thirteen there will be four more
billions which have been lent to her AL
lies. 1t is useless to try to understand
these figures. Let us take them for
granted.
1t is a little too easy to say that this
war is so unprecedented in magnitude
that comparisons are ridiculous. Let
those who feel this consult n most en-
gaging chapter in Macaulays History OF
England" from which the following is
summarized:
The national debt, says Macaulay, has
become the greatest prodigy that ever
perpleXed the sagacity and confounded
the pride of statesmen and philosophers.
When the Peace of Utrecht was con-
cluded in 1913 England owed 100000 900.
about 16 per cent. of its present debt, and
that incumbrance was considered by pro-
found thinkers as a permanent crippling
of the body polite. Unhappily for them,
England prospered. At 400 million the
case was pronounced desperate. After
the wars under the elder Pitt, with q
debt of 700 million dollars, David Hume
declared that England's madness had ex-
ceeded the madness of the Crusaders.
1t was all over. Better to have been con-
quered by Prussia and Austria, he cried.
than to be saddled with such an enormity
of debt. Macaulay then mentions Adam
Smith, whose exact words are worth in
serting here. THE progress of the enor-
nous debts which at present oppress and
will in the long run probably ruin all the
great nations of Europe has been pretty
uniform" For q hundred years that
prediction has been as antiquated as the
long SIS" used in its printing.
In 1898, says another historian, the
staggering burden" of a two-billlon-
dollar debt was the determining factor In
peace negotiations. Earlier, George
Grenville tried to relieve Englands debt
by putting part of it on the American
Colonies. causing a war which rolled up
the indebtedness still higher. After the
Napoleonic wars England was done for
ever-her finest statesmen and econo-
mists were sure of it, for England owed
over four billion dollars. Yet In the next
century England prospered beyond all
earthly expectation. sum EXCEEDING
the entire debt at the end of the Ameri-
can wars was willingly expended on in-
ternal Improvement and taxation ACTUALLY
became lighter. Mentioning these things
Macaulay indicates that there is u DIFF.
ference between personal debt and whats
society owes in great part to itself.
He ends with this extraordinary
prophecy:
long experience justlfies us in be-
leving that England may, in the twen-
tieth century, be better able TO bear a
debt Of f4,60o, 900, 600 than she is at the
present time to bear her present load.
But be this it may, those who so
confidently predicted that she must
sink, first under a debt of 30 millions,
then under debt of 80 millions, then
under a debt of 14O millions, then un-
der debt of 24O millions, and lastly
under a debt of 500 millions, were be-
yond doubt, under a twofold mistake.
They greatly overrated the pressure OF
the burden; they greatly underrated
the strength by which the burden was
TO be borne.
A hundred instances might be men
toned for every one referred to above.
and the depths of decline. the demnition
bow-wows predicted would make amusing
reading. But there is meat for a long
meal of thought in Macaulay's last words
1t may be that we do not overrate the
burden of the present time when we add
in Germany's debt, and Frances. and that
Of all the other unhappy belligerents.
All that money has gone into destruction.
Nothing has been made, nothing built, by
a sum too powerful for mortal imagina.
ton. Money has, indeed, gone into clrcu.
ation. Certain classes have become won.
derfully rich and new creditor nation.
the United States. has come TO share with
England 1t may be that the bankruptcy
now predicted may not come for hum
ired years. 1t may be that the burden
of taxation will prove too heavy to be
borne. But between Macaulay and Hirst
1ne OF the two prophets must be fooled.
1t is in the second part OF Maeaulay's
phrase that hope for the world really lies.