THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 195 



Foreign Loans. 



Now let us take these four causes in succession, and 

 endeavour to see what was their extent, and how they 

 acted. First, then, as to the foreign loans, to the effects 

 of which very little attention has been paid. From the 

 year 1862 to 1872 there was a positive mania in this 

 country for foreign loans. The amount of these I endea- 

 vour to illustrate in this table by showing simply the new 

 debts the increase of former great national debts 

 created by Foreign powers between 1863 and 1875 : 



New Debts created 1863-1875. 



France 500,000,000 



Italy 200,000,000 



Russia 400,000,000 



Turkey 200,000,000 



Egypt 80,000,000 



Tunis 7,000,000 



Central and South America 73,000,000 



1,460,000,000! 



You will see that the total sum amounts to nearly 

 1,500,000,000 sterling. Now a very large portion of 

 these loans was supplied by this country, and it is very- 

 important to consider what effect they had. First of all, 

 you must remember what these loans were for, and what 

 they were chiefly spent on. The greater part of them 

 were spent in war or preparation for war, or to supply 

 means for the reckless extravagance of foreign despots. 

 Now, as I have pointed out, we at that time were the pre- 

 eminent manufacturers in the world, and held the first 

 place much more completely than we do now ; so, as we 

 supplied a large part of this money and had extensive 

 commerce with all these countries, the natural result at 



1 England probably lent half of this amount ; and in five years only, 

 1870-75, we lent about 260,000,000 to foreign States, besides an enor- 

 mous sum for railways and other foreign investments or speculations, 



o 2 



