70

ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

Allies have been largely relieved this country isleft with the task of repaying her whole burden,subject only to the mitigation that the rate ofinterest charged, namely, 3-3 per cent, ismoderate.

The effect of this settlement is that GreatBritain will have to pay to the United States a sum of about ^33,000,000 annually up to1 933, rising to nearly ^38,000,000 annuallythereafter from that year until 1984, when thedebt will have been discharged. The realityof the weight of this burden may be illustratedby certain calculations which I made in thesummer of 1923 when the details of Mr.Baldwin’s settlement with Washington werefirst made public. We shall be paying to theUnited States each year for sixty years asum equivalent to two-thirds of the cost ofour Navy, a sum nearly equal to our Stateexpenditure on Education, a sum which exceedsthe total burden of our pre-war debt. Lookedat from another standpoint, it represents morethan the total normal profits of our coal minesand our mercantile marine added together.With these sums we could endow and splendidlyhouse every month for sixty years one newuniversity, one new hospital, one new instituteof research, etc. etc. With an equal sacrificeover an equal period we could abolish slumsand re-house in comfort the half of our popula-tion which is now inadequately sheltered.

On the other hand, we are now receivingfrom our Allies and from Germany an import-