p. 1 | BANKRUPT NATIONS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1876

BANKRUPT NATIONS.

The speech of Mr. Disraeli at the Lord Mayor’s festival discloses the alarm of the British people at the progress of repudiation. The Turkish national debt, amounting to £195,000,000, one-half of which that government proposes to repudiate, and the Egyptian debt, which is also large, are mainly held in England. The Turkish loans have been put on the market at various rates and are secured by general and special pledges of taxes. There has been for several years an annual deficit, averaging $30,000,000, which has been adroitly concealed in the government statements. In round numbers the public debt of Turkey is $1,000,000,000, and the decline in the value of Turkish securities has been very heavy. The debt of Egypt is of three classes: 1. The funded debt. 2. Floating debt. 3. Personal debt of the khedive. These aggregate $800,000,000, and the value of the bonds has also declined. These two calamities, happening almost simultaneously, have drawn attention to other circumstances where the English people have been lending their money to faithless borrowers. In the list of other governments in default are the following:—

Peru, £25,500,000 Argentine Confederation, 14,300,000 Bolivia, 1,700,000 Brazil, 23,500,000 Chili, 2,500,000 Costa Rica, 3,400,000 Paraguay, 3,000,000 Spanish, 161,000,000 Uruguay, 4,500,000 Venezuela, 5,500,000 Total, £244,900,000

Including Turkey and Egypt, the aggregate debt of the crippled States is in the neighborhood of $2,550,000,000, and the English people hold a very large proportion of these debts.—Sel.