838 



KEPOBT 1884. 



apparent anomalies, whose explanation must be sought in the causes alluded to. 

 To increase the volume of paper money when the point of saturation has been 

 reached is impossible, and its result can only be nominally to raise prices, and to 

 expel bullion from the country. 



The development of a good banking system has the greatest effect in economising 

 the use of the precious metals : the use of the Post Office for transmitting small 

 sums, and the growth of savings banks, has the same tendency. On the other hand, 

 an increase of population and wealth, and an accompanying tendency to a rise in 

 wages, act in the opposite direction. It is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, 

 to say what is the effect of the sum of these forces. 



Many attempts have been made to improve on the existing system, and the 

 decimal system and international coinage, closely allied topics, have a vast literature 

 of their own. There is a gradual tendency to unification; for some time the 

 United Kingdom and the United States, and far more recently Germany and Italy, 

 have had a national currency ; but as long as in England alone we have almost as 

 manj- measures of wheat as we have markets, it is at least sanguine to expect a 

 change in our system of currency, or the adoption of an ideally perfect system, such 

 as is attributed by Montesquieu to a tribe of Central Africa. 



2. National Debts. 1 By Michael Gr. Mulhall. 



Starting from the time of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), we find the debts have 

 risen thus : — 



Great Britain 



France 



Germany . 



Russia 



Austria 



Italy . 



Spain 



Portugal . 



Holland . 



Belgium . 



Denmark . 



Sweden and Norway 



Greece 



Turkey 



Roumania . 



Servia 



Europe 



United States 



Spanish America 



Canada 



Australia . 



India 



Japan 



Egypt 



South Africa 



The World 



Millions sterling 



1713 



1763 



54 

 48 



10 



7 



147 

 110 



15 

 11 



119 



283 



119 



283 



1793 



370 

 32 



30 

 20 



20 

 1 



70 



543 

 17 



569 



1816 1848 



841 



140 



53 



50 



99 



25 



52 



8 



110 



1,382 

 26 



773 

 182 



40 



90 

 125 



36 

 113 



17 

 114 



18 



12 

 1 



10 



1,531 

 48 

 17 



29 



1,437 



51 

 2 



1,649 



1870 



801 



468 



148 



280 



340 



374 



285 



59 



76 



28 



13 



6 



18 



92 



2,988 



496 



135 



17 



37 



108 



10 



37 



2 



3,830 



1884 



756 



995 



334 



555 



508 



438 



330 



107 



84 



78 



12 



20 



18 



148 



27 



4 



4,414 

 305 

 195 



38 

 116 

 160 



67 

 113 



23 



5,431 



Published in full by Messrs. Routledge, Ludgate Hill, London. 



