NATIONAL DEBT $225 A PERSON
National Debt $225 a Person Debt of Each Individual in 1913 Was Only $11; Has Increased Twenty-four Times During the War ANY time figures get up into the millions the average man loses all sense...
...120,485,000,000 in 1916...
...These countries with a decrease are: Ceylon, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Peru and Venezuela...
...In the first place, he is not "Sir" but "Dr...
...it was $56,900,000,000 in 1915...
...199,000,000,000 in 1917...
...There are countries that actually decreased their national debts during the war...
...17,005,431,000 in 1918 and $24,974,936,000 in 1920 while it is obvious that it has increased some 24 times, it is difficult to bring it home to the individual...
...At the close of the Napoleonic Wars this was $7,000,-000,000...
...RABINDRANATH Tagore is a different man today from what he was on his earlier visit to this country during the war...
...Hitherto, he has spoken as the Psalmist...
...225,300,000,000 in 1918...
...Canada's in 1913 was $70, and now is $159...
...The Dutch East Indies didn't owe a nickle in 1913, and now has a national debt of $91,871,-000, Panama, which owed in 1913 only $5,100, now has a debt of $7,101,000...
...From there, there is a big drop...
...new machine is of little value if it be run by the old power and for the old ends...
...For example, if we say the national debt of the United States was $1,028,564,000 in 1913...
...Then comes the United States which, despite its tremendous proportional increase, is far less heavy on the individual than in any other countries except Canada and Russia, and the last, of course, is doubtful...
...Has Increased Twenty-four Times During the War ANY time figures get up into the millions the average man loses all sense of proportion...
...On the Entente side, France (if you consider the British Empire by states and not as a whole led the world in debts with $6,346,129,000, and now, irrespective of the French colonies, owes $46,025,000,000, only a little less than Germany's $48,552,000,000...
...If there are five persons in your family, including the baby, your share of that debt is $225 times 5 or $1,125...
...The United States per capita, as quoted above, is $225 as against $11 in 1913...
...TAGORE AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS...
...for a family of five persons this is $5,750...
...This attitude was foreshadowed in his great addresses on "Nationalism," written and delivered in 1916-1917...
...Among the major belligerents the increases are extremely heavy —except in Japan...
...It is at once accurate diagnosis and unerring prophecy...
...At the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 the national debts of the word amounted to $1,500,000,000...
...Tagore...
...But what was there in bud, so to speak, is now in blossom full-brown...
...In 1914 it was $44,100,000,000, and each year of the war sent the total mounting up...
...and each billion is one thousand millions...
...Germany, in 1913, was more happily placed than any other big power...
...today each resident of France owes $1,150...
...Italy, whose personal indebtedness of $78 ranked her second in 1913, now has dropped to sixth, although her per capita indebtedness today is $365, but Australia's, whose per capita debt was no larger than Germany's $18, has become $318 for each Australian...
...but he is also today the prophet in the old Is-raelitish sense...
...It is founded on force—it has no spiritual foundation...
...Thirty years later at the beginning of the Crimean War it was $8,400,000,000, and in 1861, at the beginning of the United States Civil War, the world's indebtedness had reached $13,-400,000,000 The total had jumped to $22,-400,000,000 at the close of the Franco-Prussian War and in 1907, prior to the Spanish-American, Boer, Russo-Japanese, and Balkan wars it was $30,200,000,000...
...her inhabitants owned only $18 per individual...
...Note, for example, his recent statement on the League...
...Russia's was $27 and in 1917 was $125...
...by the armistice this was swelled to $214,075,373,000...
...248,000,000,000 in 1919 and $255,000,-000,000 in 1920.—Dearborn Independent...
...Austria, whose per capita debt in 1913 was $63, now has an individual burden of $525, and Hungary, whose debt worked out before the war at $70 each, now is responsible for $387...
...The League of Nations," he says, "is a league of robbers...
...The reason is obvious: they were neutrals or else so far removed that the demands on their resources were small and their commerce was not ravaged as was the case with the Scandinavian countries, for example...
...Great Britain comes second now, although in 1913 she was third...
...It made a dent, but only a dent, in the crust...
...today the world owes $265,305,022,000...
...perhaps the most powerful argument showing the wrongness of international conduct ever produced...
...but this does not include the colonial debts...
...You can buy an automobile and a piano and have enough left over for spare tires and gasoline with $1,125...
...Now he speaks also as an Isaiah, stricken by the woes of his people, and lifted to ecstatic vision of a new world of justice and of peace...
...He is still the poet and mystic...
...Other blows will fall betimes...
...If proof of this last statement is deemed insufficient, here are a few figures showing how the load gradually increased with the wars of the last two centuries...
...The total pre-war national debts of the world totaled $43,200,931,000...
...In 1913 Japan owed $1,241,997,000 and today her debt only amounts to $1,300,000,000, comparatively speaking, a paltry increase...
...But, if we put it this way: the debt of each individual—each person's share of the national debt—in 1913 was $11, and today each persons share of the debt is $225, that makes it clear enough, for $11 and $225 are sums well within common experience...
...It is a lot of money...
...But here is a peculiar thing...
...Canada's increase is from $544,391,000 to $1,935,946,000...
...This is an attempted analysis of those figures in everyday terms...
...Without going into details the total indebtedness of the British Empire in 1913 was $8,121,-932,000 while now it reaches $48,045,148,000...
...From then on, hundreds of millions, billions, are only rows of ciphers, But in the Journal of Commerce (New York) Frederic Austin published the first complete figures on international finance authoritatively compiled since the war...
...We have seen many statements about the war and its titanic failure, but none sounder than this of the Indian seer...
...The British personal obligation was $78, now it is $850...
...Organization is not brotherhood, and God cares more for a brother than he does for an empire...
...Now to put these figures in pocketbook terms, the French, with the heaviest per capita obligate in the world, owed, in 1913, $160 for every individual in the republic...
...China alone owes that much today...
...but today, exclusive of the debts of the individual states, each German is responsible for $800...
...Eighty years later, on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, the total had reached $2,500,000,000...
...his knightly title, repudiated because of England's tyrannous rule of his native country, gives way to a title which tells of his eminence in the realm not of empire but of letters and learning...
...Put it in words—two hundred and sixty-five billions of dollars...
...Then, in his speech and personal bearing, there is a new note of leadership in world affairs...
...The Great War was one of the blows of God seeking to break down our materialism, our selfishness, our narrow nationalisms...
...Similar figures might be worked out for every nation in the world, but sufficient is indicated to show that the weight of affairs falls heavily on every living soul in the world...
...Tagore, for years one of the world's greatest men, looms greater today than ever.—Unity...
...Every other nation in the world, with Japan, has seen its debt increase, the United Kingdom's national debt, for example, has grown from $3,485,818,000 to $39,314,000,000...
Vol. 13 • March 1921 • No. 3
