Mr. Blaine, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has made
a speech to the North Wisconsin Agricultural Association, in which he says that the total indebtedness of the American Union, including the National Debt, the State Debts, and the debts of all the Municipalities, amounts (calculating the dollar at 4s.) to £640,000,000, probably equal to one-tenth the property of the country, whose income, he says, increases about £24,000,000 a year. He• holds that at the present rate of increase, men still living will see one hundred millions of people in the Union, and its income increased to £3,000,000,000 sterling a year. Figures of this kind were once very popular, but except to pad an election speech, they are almost valueless. There is not the slightest ground for assuming a particular rate of in- crease in American population, or wealth, or rate, of expenditure, and still less for assuming a particular rate of interest on property,, which is the first point of all. Suppose the Union is worth £6,400,000,000 now, which it may be, or not, and the interest on that to be ten per cent., doubling that property will not double wealth, in the sense of wealth against debt, unless the interest• remains stationary. Now the tendency of accumulation is to diminish average return. The true point to be ascertained about debt is the proportion its interest bears to the. annual income of the nation, and no doubt, as the Union fills up, that will become smaller.
Previous page
