BANKRUPT PERU.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5370, 1 February 1879, Page 7

BANKRUPT PERU.

Thk New\orK Times says : jroru owes aoout 200,000,000 dols., mostly to the trusting and much-abmed British bondholder. It is in default ahout 6.000,000 dols. for interest, and it is aaid to be the opinion of the best-inform-d bußiniss men at Lima and Callao that do provision will ever be m:ule for the payment of that or any other dues upon th*i foreign debt. To be i-ure, the obligation was originally secured by a mortgage upon the guano deposits and nitrate beds, which are a Government monopoly, and on suudry railroads th*t b-long to the State and pay no dividends. Notwithstanding the pledge to its creditors, the Government, has been letting out profitable contracts for guano to certain parties, and spending the proceeds fur other purposes than meeting its interest accounts. The railroads which were to be built with borrowed capital were to develop the country and gave a tremendous htimulus to industry and commerce, thus making it easy for Peru to pay her debts, eitht-r from the direct proceeds of hi-r railways traffic or from taxation on her prosp rous people. The railroads have been built, at least in part. At all event:) the money has been spent on engineering of ti.e most gigantic kin 1. But the country thus far fails to develop according to expectations. That daring outlaw from California Henry Meit;gs, pocketed a large shar- of the proceeds of the loans of 1870 and 1872, and ran fragments of railroads over and through and under the Amies ; but somehow ra lroads alone do not cuitivate cotton or sugar cine, woik mines or set mimfactorie* going : neither do they gather products that are not produced, or ere ite commerce where it is not. Peru has all the coud tions for exceptional prosperity, and yet Peru is bankrupt. Instead of using its resources wis-ly, it b 'gail borrowing money on them, discounting the future, aud developing the country by the back action process by buil.ling railroads on Government account.