STATE GRANGE OF ILLINOIS. 61 



ized world. Nearly $9,000,000 must be carried and set apart for the pur- 

 poses of war every day." — N. A. Review, January, 1873. 



TUE NATION.VL DEBTS OP TUE WORLD. 



"The total of national debts in 1848," says the Journal of the London 

 Statistical Society for March, 1874, " was about £1,700,000,000 or |8,500.- 

 000,000, reckoning a pound sterling to be live dollars. In 1873, the 

 amount was about .i;4, 080,000,000 (.r .>{;23,400,000,000. Up to ISGO the 

 national debts were cliietiy in Europe; and from 1848 to 18o4 their average 

 increase was at the rate of about £20,000,000 or |100,000,000 per year. 

 From 1855 to 1860 the rate of increase was £50.000,000 or $250,000,000 a 

 year. 



"After 1860 came the Ana-rican Civil War, the Prussian-Austrian War 

 and the French-German War, leading to an immense increase in national 

 loans in America and Eunjpe. A general epidemic of borrowing for war 

 purposes and for improvements, set in among the nations all over the 

 globe. Capital accumulated rapidly and the nations rushed in as borrow- 

 ers, and thereby as rapidly increased their indebtedness. Some borrowed 

 for war, and others for public works; but ail borrowed. The average in- 

 crease of national debts from 1861 to 1873 was at the rate of £200,000,000 

 or $1,000,000,000 a year." 



This estimate is corroborated as to its results by one made by Secretary 

 Boutwfll, and may be regarded as substantially correct. It is for the pro- 

 ducers of wealth, for farmer, mechanic and laborer, a terrible fact. For, 

 as Isaac Butts said ia ihe yorth American Review, Jan., 1873: "Prop- 

 erty in all countries makes but small direct contribution to the support 

 of nati«)nal debts and costly military and naval establishments, — the mo^t 

 grievous, perhaps, of all the burdens that afflict modern society. The 

 revenues which they necessitate are chiefly raised by excise and import 

 duties, and these are paid by rich and poor, not at all in proportitm to 

 their respective abilities to pay, but in proportion to the tiuaulities of 

 taxed commodities which they respectively consume." And another fact 

 stated in the same connection increases the relative disparity. "The favor- 

 ite investment of the wealthy classes are, first the bonds of different gov- 

 ernments; and second the stocks of great corporations. The first are 

 exempt from taxation (in the United States, at least, probably not in some 

 countries); tlie second virtually assess their taxes upon the public, by 

 considering their public taxes, the interest upon their capital, and the cost 

 of operating as one sum, to be provided for in tiieir scale of charges, 

 which they arc generally allowed to regulate in their own discretion and 

 witlj reference to their own interests exclusively. The combined burthen 

 ultimately falls on the masses who are thus 'beaten ' out of a portion of 

 their rightful property." 



LOCAL PUBLIC DEBTS. 

 This national indebtedness is supplemented by an immense aggregate 

 of local public debt, the principal and interest of whicjj must be mostly 

 met by taxation. Without being able to furnish very late or entirely 



