Full text of 'AN EMPIRE IN PAWNrtA- JWILSONfM^-:'^^r^^liiilJCmmbxwmI;)'!W!;ifDigitized by the Internet Archivein 2007 with funding fromIVIicrosoft CorporationEMPIRE IN PAWNAN EMPIRE IN PAWNBEING LECTURES AND ESSAYS ONINDIAN, COLONIAL, AND DOMESTICFINANCE, 'PREFERENCE,' FREE TRADEETC,BYA. FISHER UNWINLONDON: ADELPHI TERRACELEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20MCMIXa1 V'-^'r. '.i4/Z rights reserved.PREFACEMY venerable uncle, the Rev. GeorgeJohnstone, who more than thirty yearsago read the proofs of my first book,.' TheResources of Modern Countries,' has lived to per-form the same service for me upon the proofs ofthe book now issued.
During my years making mobile games, my work ranged from Concept Art, Animation to even marketing pieces. In the last project I worked there 'Bid Wars: Pawn Empire' I had the role of Lead Artist, responsible for guiding two other artists and working along the Programming and Game Design team, while also producing art for the same game. May 15, 2017 Bid Wars Storage Auctions is one of the most unique games available both for Apple and Android operating devices. This is because players get to participate in the equivalent of a real life auction house and experience both the profits and losses that come along with it.
For that service, and forappreciative and kindly advice, I owe him mygrateful thanks.Also in putting these essays, old and new, intoa book, I must seize the opportunity to acknowledgethe valuable help given to me in the earlier yearsof the Investors Review by my two assistants inthe City office of the Standard newspaper — Mr.W. Harrap and Mr. Robert Benham.
Much ofthe drudging statistical labour involved in the com-position of the earlier articles here reprinted wascheerfully performed by these two men, and thebulk of the essay on Rhodesian Finance was puttogether by Mr. Harrap alone. More loyal, capable,s2728106 PREFACEand accurate assistants City Editor never had, andI shall always hold these two colleagues in gratefulremembrance. For sixteen years we worked togetherin harmony.My acknowledgments are due to Mr. Long-man for his prompt courtesy in giving me the per-mission of his firm, Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.,to reprint the article here entitled ' BureaucraticIndia,' which appeared in Fraser's Magazine forAugust, 1882, under the title of.' An Indian Romance— and the Reality.'
I have also to thank my co-editor son for theready and always willing help he has given me.A. W.Mav I, 1909.CONTENTSPAGEI. BUREAUCRATIC INDIA. THE BURDEN OF INDIA.62IV. INDIA — AFTER FIFTY YEARS OF IMPERIAL RULE.
THE BORROWINGS OF AUSTRALASIA. UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS AND UNHEEDED ADVICE. 1 26VIII. IN PRAISE OF DEBTORS AND CREDITORS. THE COLONIAL 'CONFERENCE'.
AUSTRALIA'S DEMAND FOR PREFERENCE. ITEMS IN NEW ZEALAND 'PROSPERITY'. PREFERENCE, PROTECTION, AND FREE TRADE.
A TRUE IMPERIAL CUSTOMS UNION. THE FORCES BEHIND PROTECTION. Mallock's 'statistical abstract'.191XVI.
Industrial GERMANY. 2118 CONTENTSPAGEXVII. RHODESIAN FINANCE. SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE CHARTERED COMPANY 248XIX. SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN BANKING. 'THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING'.
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORS.SO?AN EMPIRE IN PAWNINTRODUCTIONIN some of these reprinted essays the statistics areold in a sense, but I do not think the argumentever is. My contention has always been a simple one,that debt is a cancerous disease and morally deadly inthe course of time alike for the nation and the indi-vidual; and inasmuch as the age we live in is distin-guished above all that have gone before it as the ageof credit, which means debt, it follows that our peril isthe greatest ever seen, and it grows in intensity — theperil to our civilisation and liberties. Few peoplehave any conception of the extent to which ourcivilisation has been created by and is buoyed upondebt. In lightness of heart, with hardly a thoughtfor the morrow, we have gone to the credit manu-facturer for the means to gratify every whim, passion,and aspiration.
By help of credit we have carried onour wars, created our iron highways, cleansed andbeautified our cities, and enlarged our dominions;and now credit is called in to assist us in keepingour unemployed from dying of starvation. In a recentessay of much excellence Mr.
Thomas Gibson Bowlescomputes the total of the national and local debts ofap AN EMPIRE IN PAWNthe United Kingdom at nearly;^ 1,500, 000,000 sterling,and this mass is constantly growing. Redemptionof debt, so much boasted about by the Government,is, for the most part, illusory. At the utmost, less than;^5, 000,000 nett has been paid off since the presentMinistry came into power, and if we add the;^5 2,000,000or more waiting to be issued on account of land boughtin Ireland and not yet paid for, the liabilities of thecommunity have really been steadily augmenting allthe time. Sinking-funds and other methods of payingdebt are too often merely instruments utilised to propor hoist the market price for Government securities.Nor are national and local debts by any means allthe story.
If to these we add the debts contractedby the railway companies through debenture issues,guarantees of rent and so on, together with the debtsof industrial undertakings of all kinds and other busi-ness obligations, it will be found that the most recenttotal of the ever-growing load upon the industry of thepeople of this country is not far short of;^3, 000, 000, 000sterling. At an average of 3 per cent, this wouldmean;^90, 000,000 a year that the British and Irishpeoples would have to provide for the satisfaction of thedemands of mortgagees before they could buy breadfor themselves, and before dividends could be earnedon any company's share capital.
In actual fact resultsdo not work out in quite this clean-cut style. It isnone the less true that under conditions thus indicatedperpetual suction of the people's earnings goes on,whereby the wealth of the minority tends to increaseat the expense of the many.But the tale is not ended with our domestic debts.All over the empire the same process has been inINTRODUCTION 11operation — in India, in Canada, in Australasia, inwhatever spot the British flag is hoisted.
Nowherein the world has the process of enslavement by debtbeen more actively in operation than in South Africasince the close of the last war. If the credit- wovenobligations of the populations embraced within thelimits of the great British Empire be all addedtogether, it will be found no exaggeration to saythat these populations are expected to sustain thecharges imposed by a compulsory mortgage loadof some;^4,ooo, 000,000 sterling. In other words,from;^i 50,000,000 to;^2oo,ooo,ooo is expectedto be furnished out of the product of the people'slabour each year in the way of debt interest, andall in addition to the ordinary cost of government,which is likewise increasing fast. For the multitude,no matter what the population may be — and of whitesit is well under 60,000,000 — this must mean augment-ing misery, no matter how science and invention maycome to their help, no matter what the advantagesgained may be, and the misery will more and morefind its expression in political unrest, in quacknostrums to cure social anomalies, and, it may be, inefforts at revolt.It is because I think I see symptoms of approach-ing renewed crises, the product of credit-abusedexcesses in various parts of the empire and at home,that I have ventured to gather these old paperstogether now. Embarrassment clogs the footstepsof all civilised Governments, the fruit of theirextravagance, and not least those of England andher dependencies. Perhaps the first thing that maystrike the reader in turning over the following pages12 AN EMPIRE IN PAWNis that the predictions of approaching financial con-fusions I so freely indulged in sixteen to eighteenyears ago have not yet come true and may, therefore,turn out to be false after all. This may well appear anapt criticism until the reader remembers by what meansthe looked-for disaster has been staved off.
It hasbeen so only by continual application of further dosesof credit, and the centre of the whole system ofenslavement through debt is in London. All restsupon the old country and her credit-generatingmachinery, and I was too eager to see the end of adeadly usage, it must be admitted; so that I did notproperly measure the resources of the home distillerof market credit, of what is called money, by whosehelp the denouement has been pressed back, but theend will only be the more disastrous when it doescome. Debt which can never be repaid, which isalways growing in magnitude, stifles life at last, ordevelops social earthquakes.Credit, in other words, recklessly applied, as it toooften is, merely aggravates the virulence of the cancerin the body economic, and accordingly we now seethe entire empire kept alive, and in an appearance ofsolvency, by constant and increasingly strong doses ofthe loan stimulant. When the Simla Governmentof India decided arbitrarily to fix the exchange valueof the rupee as against gold, and without referenceto its intrinsic exchangeable value as a commodity,an act of bankruptcy was committed by it against thepeople of India. Bankruptcy towards the Europeancreditor must have followed in due course, and withno great lapse of time, had not a vigorous policy ofborrowing in England for railways and other publicINTRODUCTION 13works been set on foot and persevered with.
Thisloan-emitting style of averting disaster has now risento more than;^ 10,000,000 per annum, and the totaldebt of India exceeds;^400,ooo,ooo on any computa-tion, while each year that passes drives the BritishGovernment of the Peninsula faster along the road toruin.