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THE WORLD BANKRUPT

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

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

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THE WORLD BANKRUPT.

By WM. PENNIMAN

BY WM. PENNIMAN.
A RECENT number of the REVIEW contains an article with the caption, “What’s the Matter with the World?” The following, from the Missouri Republican, will show what is the matter in a financial sense:
“An industrious statistician has gone over the financial records of 1879, and finds the world bankrupt; that is, the aggregated debt of the various nations is more than there is money to pay. He also discovers that the debt is increasing annually, that some of the nations are hopelessly involved; and he wonders when the whole thing is going to smash. The European civilization, transplanted and grafted in America, and the great English belt which girdles the world, have cost more in money than its peoples can ever liquidate, and it does not look honest.
“The Asiatic civilization makes a far better showing of that kind of morality which consists in performing promises and giving unto every man his just dues. Take China, for instance, a nation of 425,000,000 people, the greatest empire in the world. China lives within her means, and never swindles her creditors. Her annual revenues amount to $125,000,000, and her expenditures are not more than $80,000,000, leaving a surplus of $45,000,000. China never had a national debt until 1874. Her communication with other spendthrift nations since that time has resulted in the contraction of a foreign debt of $3,138,400, and a domestic loan of $8,021,000, making in all an insignificant national debt of $11,159,400, or only twenty-six cents a head for all the Chinese. It is evident that China could liquidate her bonded indebtedness at once. She sets an example of financial honesty to the world; and when the smash comes, China will be safe,—exempt from the general bankruptcy and its ruin. Other oriental nations that have mingled more with Europeans, and adopted some of their ways, are in no better financial condition than Europe, which is literally eaten up by its wars and rulers.”