BRITISH FINANCE.

Wairarapa Age, 18 November 1919, Page 4

BRITISH FINANCE.

The late Sir Edward Holdcn made an 'interesting speech recently on the financial position and currency policy of Great Britain. He calculated that the national debt, when all assets had been realised, would have multiplied by ten during the war—from £650,000,000 to £6,418,000,000. The American debt has increased in about the same proportion —from £204,000,000 to £2,600,000,000. The German debt—that country having no assets in the shape of loans to allies likely to bo worth anything—will be £8,300,000,000, against £240,000,000 before the war. These figures give some idea of tho vast cost and waste of war, particularly when wc remember that the expenditure of a few millions on some necessary social reform u3ed to bo strongly opposed on economical grounds.' Sir Edward was definitely opposed to the currency policy of the Cunliffe Committee. The difference between them is briefly this: Lord Cunliffo wishes to reestablish our credit by strict retrenchment and" economy. Sir Edward Holden believed that wc should strain our creau a little further in order to secure commercial prosperity, in the hope that increased prosperity itself would afterwards restore our credit to its old position.