Public bonds imply bondsmen, and the nations
are no longer free. There is a mortgage upon the inventive genius,
industry and productive energy of the world.

Usurers greatly prefer an organized government as a debtor. The
individual may die, but a nation's debts bind from age to age, are
bequeathed by the fathers to the children, and thus descend from
generation to generation. The bonds of no corporation, however great
and rich, can be so secure. They embrace special industries, while
national debts are a claim upon every industry and a mortgage upon
every foot of soil, and every dollar of present personal property, and
of all that may be produced in the whole realm.

If we express the world's indebtedness, the national debts, in the
terms of our currency, as nearly as we can reduce the currency of
other nations to such an expression, we find the national debts as
follows, in 1890:

Denmark $ 33,004,722
Great Britain 3,848,460,000
United States 915,962,112
Germany 1,956,217,017
Austria-Hungary $2,666,339,539
France 4,446,793,398
Russia 3,491,016,074
Italy 2,324,826,329
Spain 1,251,433,096
Netherlands 430,539,653
Belgium 360,504,099
Sweden 64,220,807
Norway 13,973,752
Portugal 490,493,599
Greece 107,306,518
Turkey 821,000,000
Switzerland 10,912,925
---------------
These debts aggregate $22,955,386,008

Hundreds of millions have been added to these national debts in the
last ten years. Nearly every nation has increased its indebtedness,
possibly no nation has decreased it, and others, like China, with its
recent great loan, and little Korea, with its twelve millions, must be
added to the list. The debts of the nations of Europe have been
increased until they now amount in the aggregate to twenty-three
billions. The debts of the nations of all the world have increased
one-half since 1890, and now aggregate thirty-three billions.

These great national debts are practically perpetu