CHAPTER XIII

WAR AND POST-WAR BORROWINGS

The Great War admittedly produced vast changes in the National Debt and introduced financial problems of an entirely new order. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the nation is now confronted with a situation to which there is no parallel in its own history. Such evidence as has been brought forward seems to show, for example, that the burden of the internal debt measured in relation to the national income is not greater now than it was at the close of the Napoleonic Wars.1 The methods by which that burden can be lightened are no different from those which have been put forward in the past—conversions, sinking funds, a levy on accumulated wealth.

The really novel elements which have arisen ...

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