“National Debts and U. S. Stocks.” from the May 25, 1865 Door County Advocate
National Debts and U. S. Stocks.
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The creation of national debts is not a modern improvement, but the ability of a great nation to provide for a great debt, and to make it the most convenient and best form of personal property, is a modern wonder. The debt of Great Britain was begun by raising a million sterling by loan in 1692, and when her great contest with Louis XIV. was terminated, the debt had reached fifty millions. Many statesman and economists were then alarmed at the great burden which had been imposed up on the industry of the country, but when the war of the Austrian succession had swelled this amount to eighty millions, Macaulay says that historians and orators pronounced the case to be desperate. But when the war again broke out, and the national debt was rapidly carried up to one hundred and forty millions, men of theory and business both pronounced that the fatal day had certainly arrived. David Hume said that, although, by taxing its energies to the utmost the country might possibly live through it, the experiment must never be repeated,—even a small increase might be fatal. Granville said the nation must sink under it unless some portion of the load was borne by the American Colonies, and the attempt to impose this load produced the war of the revolution, and, instead at diminishing added another hundred millions to the burden. Again, says Macaulay, was England given over, but again she was more prosperous than ever before. But when at the close of her Napoleonic wars in 1816, this debt had been swelled up to the enormous sum of over eight hundred millions sterling, or four thousand three hundred million dollars, or nearly one half the entire property of the United Kingdom, the stoutest heart, the firmest believer in national progress and national development, might have been appalled. But in the very face of this mountain of obligation,—to say nothing of her vast colonial possessions,—the property of the British nation has been more than trebled, and her debt is now a charge of but 12½ per cent. against it. All that Great Britain has done in paying her 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, a population full of life, energy, enterprise and industry, and the accumulated wealth of money and labor of the old countries pouring into the lap of our giant and ever-to-be-united republic. During the fiercest and most exhausting of all possible wars, we have demonstrated our national strength—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 “as good as British Consols.” For our part, we think a U. S. Treasury note, bearing seven and three-tenths annual interest, 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 consols, are now glad to sell out and invest at home at a round loss,—and serves them right.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
National debt related articles
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Articles by Joseph Harris, Sr.
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/joseph-harris-sr