p. 373 | ASTONISHING EUROPE by Editor

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, June 10, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 24

ASTONISHING EUROPE.

By Editor

WHILE our period of youth and growth and development lasts, we shall never cease to furnish cause for astonishment to the countries of Europe. “Fifteen years ago,” says the London News, “any one who had ventured to predict that in 1879 the United States would not only have paid off a considerable portion of its public debt, but be also in a commercial and financial position to draw upon the gold reserves of Europe as it is doing, would have been treated as a lunatic. But there was no such prophet. At that time men of great commercial and financial experience did not hesitate to say that the debt could not, and would not, be seriously dealt with, while the marvelous development of American production which we have witnessed during the last few years was not so much as imagined.”

Our London contemporary takes this retrospective glance in the course of an article on the withdrawals of gold from England and France for the United States, in which it does not attempt to conceal its uneasiness at the prospect, the amount of gold shipped to this country since Aug. 1 having been about $70,000,000. A look into the past is interesting, sometimes, and furnishes instructive contrasts. In May, 1865, not quite 15 years ago, just when the Confederacy was tumbling to pieces, the London Times copied and indorsed a statement of the Journal of Commerce, that if our national debt was not paid in two years it would be in danger of repudiation.

The Times denounced this statement as an “abominable libel upon the American people,” and said that the debt was “as sure of being paid as next winter’s snows are to melt.” At that time the rebel cotton loan, which was quoted at 17 after the fall of Richmond, had fallen to 11, on receipt of the news of Lee’s surrender, and loyal people in this country were heartily enjoying the groans and wry faces of the victimized rebel sympathizers of Lombard street. Our five-twenties had come up from a little above 50 to 65 or 70 in the London market in less than a month. That was the moment when the sunshine first broke through the clouds. At home, national hope was high. The daily subscriptions to the new seven-thirty loan astonished everybody. On the 1st of October, 1865, the debt of the nation, less the funds in the Treasury, was $2,741,390,922.11. The last debt statement, issued the first of the present month, showed the debt to be

$2,016,049,722.83, a reduction of $725,341,199.28 in less than 15 years, or at the rate of $48,356,079.95 a year. This looks as if there was a pretty deep determination in this country that the debt shall be “seriously dealt with.”

It is creditable to our London contemporary that it sees in this not only a reason for complimenting the people of the United States, but also substantial ground for self-congratulation by English-speaking people everywhere.—N. Y. Times.