War debt

“ Although thinking Germans know that if they do not win the war the financial day of reckoning will come, nevertheless, owing to the clever financial handling of the country by the government and the great banks, there is at present no financial distress in Germany; and the knowledge that, unless indemnities are obtained from other countries, the weight of the great war debt will fall upon the people, perhaps makes them readier to risk all in a final attempt to win the war and impose indemnities upon not only the nations of Europe but also upon the United States of America. ”

“ If a sovereign exhausts the wealth and strength of a country in war, he will end in being a king of slaves and beggars. The national debt is just the measure, the check-account of the labour and resources of the country which have been so wasted—of the stones we have been throwing into the sea. This debt is in fact an obligation entered into by the government on the part of the tax-payers, to indemnify the tax-receivers for their sacrifices in enabling the government to carry on the war. ”

“ The great debt of the world is by no means yet paid. Whether or not Germany pays to the material limit, is not so much. Whether or not we get back a tenth of our war money, is not so much—that is not the way the great debt of the world is going to be paid. ”

“ The policy of raising a large portion of war expenditures by taxation is wise and sound. But to be iconoclastic in applying that policy, to make that portion so large as to chill the spirit and lame the enterprise of the country is neither good politics nor good economics.
The present has its rights as well as the future. Sacrifices should be reasonably averaged. An annual sinking fund of 5 per cent. would extinguish the war debt in fifteen years. ”

“ Sir, if this system of warfare is carried into effect, we shall unavoidably create an annual expense of forty millions of dollars; and where is your money to defray this expense? Why, you must take it from the pockets of our constituents, and from those who are opposed to this war; and if you fail of obtaining the necessary loans, you must stop payment; the nation will become bankrupt, and future generations will be loaded with an enormous debt.
Sir, can this be for the honor and interest of the American people; can it be for the satisfaction of our constituents ”

“ The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well as States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. ”

“ It will not diminish the amount of available capital, but may even rather increase it by gathering into the hands of the debt-holders—who are ex-hypothesi folk with an inclination for saving—money that might, if left in the hands of those from whom it is collected, have been squandered. The payment of the debt charge merely means that those who came forward with their money when they were asked to subscribe to war loans, have, according to the extent of the effort that they then made, a set-off against the subsequent taxation involved by the war debt. ”

“ Whatever may be the weight of the final burden of reparation and restitution to be placed on Germany, the size of the task ahead of her may be illustrated by comparison of her national debt with that of the United States, Germany has 66,000,000 population and $80,000,000,000 of estimated wealth, to pay $35,000,000,000 of war debt already created. ”

“ I admire beyond expression the courage which has carried through the threefold operation of cutting down in earnest your war establishments, maintaining for the time your war taxes, and paying off in your first year of peace twenty-five millions sterling of your debt. There are nations that could lay an electric telegraph under the Atlantic and yet could not do this. ”

“ The gigantic War has created huge national debts and has destroyed incalculable values. The British War debt seems likely to amount to at least £5,000,000,000. It seems questionable whether the British people will receive any compensation from their opponents, for the devastated countries, Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Roumania, France, and Russia, have the first claim upon German indemnities. ”

“ In order to make up the balance, we must either draw on our national savings or run into debt. If we draw on our savings, we shall have so much the less money left for the expenses of the war. If we run largely into debt, we shall find ourselves heavily burdened when the day of peace arrives. ”

“ Therefore, if war has provided you with a trade, it has been at an enormous cost; but I think it is by no means doubtful that your trade would have been no less in amount and no less profitable, had peace and justice been inscribed on your flag instead of conquest and the love of military renown. But even in this year, 1858—we have got a long way into the century—we find that within the last seven years our public debt has greatly increased. Whatever be the increase of our population, of our machinery, of our industry, of our wealth, still our national debt goes on increasing. ”

“ But surely this is not the end of all endeavours to reach a settlement of the question of inter-Allied debts. We cannot rest satisfied with an arrangement which effectively binds us to pay without prospect of the slightest contribution from our debtors. [Pg 259] What America cannot indulge in we cannot afford. The gold of Europe now lies in its coffers. Who are we—plunged in the mire of debt up to our nostrils—to give ourselves airs of generosity superior to the only golden land left in this war-stripped earth? ”

“ And that will is motived by the great shadow that is hanging over the world—the shadow of public debt in this war. Someone must pay that debt. Heretofore war debts have fallen heaviest upon the poor. Those least able to pay have paid the most. But those least able to pay are coming out of this war too smart for the old adjustment of the debt. Education, for the past fifty years has made a new man, who will refuse to be over-taxed. During our visit to the front the soldiers were forever saying to Henry and me: "We have offered our lives. Those who stayed at home must give up their riches." ”

“ Besides, the men to fight the battles, and the capital by which to feed, clothe, and furnish them the munitions of war, must come from that generation; and there is always great injustice in the manipulations of a great debt ostensibly incurred to obtain this capital, and the debt itself is usually in large part rather a memorial of the war than of the means by which its expenses were actually defrayed. ”

“ Each of the High Contracting Parties shall be respectively responsible for the payment of such debts due by its nationals, except in the cases where before the war the debtor was in a state of bankruptcy or failure, or had given formal indication of insolvency, or where the debt was due by a company whose business has been liquidated under emergency legislation during the war. Nevertheless, debts due by the inhabitants of territory invaded or occupied by the enemy before the Armistice will not be guaranteed by the States of which those territories form part ”

“ The loss to people with fixed incomes, the disturbance of trade, the potential labor difficulties are stupendous. And as a result of purchasing war material at excessively high prices, the dead weight of debt incurred by all the countries at war is very much greater than it need have been had currencies been kept within reasonable bounds. ”

“ A considerable proportion of those forces must remain in Europe during the period of occupation, and those which are brought home will be transported and demobilized at heavy expense for months to come. The interest on our war debt must of course be paid and provision made for the retirement of the obligations of the Government which represent it. But these demands will of course fall much below what a continuation of military operations would have entailed and six billions should suffice to supply a sound foundation for the financial operations of the year. ”

“ It destroys the labour of busy generations, past and present, and saddles heavy national debt on those that are yet unborn. It has been estimated that the national debts of Europe now amount to nearly 3000 millions sterling, more than three-fourths of which have been required for war and warlike preparations, and that about 600 millions are annually taken from the capital and industry of nations for the expense of past, and the preparation for future wars. War tramples gallantry in the dust, leaves women at the mercy of a brutal soldiery, slaughters old men, and tosses babes on bayonet-points. ”

“ It urged the gradual discharge of the great war debt to be extended over a considerable period of time, with such reductions of interest from time to time as might be made possible by the willingness of capitalists, in an era of increasing prosperity, to lend money at lower rates. ”

“ With taxation on a really sound basis no further sacrifice would be involved by the debt charge, and no diminution of the nation's wealth or consuming power, which will depend, as always, on its output of goods and services; but only a transfer of consuming power from taxpayers to debt-holders in accordance with the sacrifice made by the latter during the war. What we produce as a nation we shall consume as a nation, subject to the extent that we financed the war during its course by operations abroad. ”

“ We must say that inasmuch as France before the War had a public debt of 32 milliards, and now has a debt of 265 milliards, without calculating what she owes to Great Britain and the United States, France, by reason of the War, has immensely enriched herself, since, leaving aside the debt contracted abroad and the previous debt, she has saved during the War 200 milliards, quite apart from the increase in bank deposits and the increase in capital of limited companies. The War has therefore immensely enriched her. ”

“ We see from this instance that the National Debt is swollen by costly wars that might have been avoided by convincingly adequate organization, or, at any rate, curtailed by rapid blows at the outset of the war. ”

“ A foreign war meant to him the disarrangement of domestic affairs, interference with domestic development, and the accumulation of a debt which must fall in the last analysis upon the common people, the least able to bear it. To a correspondent he expressed his desire to avoid war until the national debt was discharged, when the regular income would meet the expense of a war and so prevent a new debt and increased taxes. ”

“ We are more saving of peace taxes than of war debt.... If the arrangement for strict saving in time of peace and for wild waste in time of war was ever a wise one, which in my opinion it was not, even in the days of old-fashioned armies, it is certainly foolish in these times of rapid mobilization.... ”

“ If on the breaking out of any future war, we shall not have very considerably reduced our debt, one of two things must happen, either the whole expenses of that war must be defrayed by taxes raised from year to year, or we must, at the end of that war, if not before, submit to a national bankruptcy; not that we shall be unable to bear any large additions to the debt; it would be difficult to set limits to the powers of a great nation ”

“ In one important sense, however, this war—hateful and horrible though it be—is the price which the nation must pay for its ideas and its magnanimity. If you take a clear initial step toward any great end, you thereby assume as a debt to destiny the pursuit and completion of your action; and should you fail to meet this debt, it will not fail to meet you, though now in the shape of retribution and with a biting edge. The seaman who has signed shipping-papers owes a voyage, and must either sail or suffer. ”

“ The great powers of war, of taxation, and of borrowing money, which were vested in Congress to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, comprised that in question. There could be no more doubt of their right to charge themselves with the payment of a debt contracted in the past war, than to borrow money for the prosecution of a future war. ”

“ If the United States shall be forced into a state of actual war, all the resources of the country must be called forth to make it efficient, and new loans will undoubtedly be wanted. But whilst peace is preserved the revenue will, at all events, be sufficient to pay the interest and to defray necessary expenses. I do not ask that in the present situation of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that it shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. ”

“ A theory in which we fully concur. We see growing out of it a restoration of business: government creditors paid in a currency equal to gold; low prices for all government contracts; a consequent diminished expenditure for supplies, and an annual payment for interest on the debt we shall owe, which can be easily met without heavy taxation. However it may turn out in the conduct of the war,—and we have full faith in that also,—it is very certain that in the conduct of the finances we have found the man for the times. The whole country feels this, and breathes easier for it. ”