An official in the National City Bank of New York, Mr. G. E. Roberts, is quoted by the New York _Times_ as saying that the wealth-producing equipment of the country had become greater than ever during the war. He did not believe either that there would be any difficulty of the United States being paid back for the money it had loaned foreign governments. "We are going to be peculiarly situated in our foreign relations after the war. We have paid off the greater part of what we owe abroad, and we have lent to foreign governments some $7,000,000,000 or $8,000,000,000. Including all loans by the time the war is over, probably there will be annual interest payments coming to us amounting to $400,000,000 or $500,000,000. How are we going to receive our pay? I am not questioning the ability of our debtors to raise this amount from their people. I have no doubt they can do it, but in what manner are they going to make payment to us? They can't pay it in gold; they haven't the gold to do it, and the total production of gold in the world outside of the United States wouldn't be enough to do it. We won't want them to pay it in goods, for that would interfere seriously with our home industries.... "There is only one way out, and that is by extending more credit to them. We will have to capitalize the interest payments and reinvest them abroad. And if we want to sell goods to them we will have to take their bonds and stocks. In short, we will have to play the part that England has played in the past, of steadily increasing our foreign investments." While the great sums subscribed for the Fourth Loan by banks, corporations, and individuals had a spectacular interest, observed the New York _World_, it was the plain people who made the loan a conspicuous success, and the twenty-one million subscribers mean in effect the purchase of a new Liberty Bond by "every American family." THE LOAN PERIODS There were very good reasons on the part of the government for selecting the definite periods at which the Liberty Loans were to be issued. There were also very good reasons derived from experience by which the government was guided in preparing for the loans. Prior to the fourth loan Secretary McAdoo believed that it could be made to reach fully one-fourth of the population of the country. Preparation for it was made through publicity on a scale hitherto unprecedented. The Washington correspondent of the New York _Journal of Commerce_, writing on July 31, 1918, said: "The country will be appealed to, with new and striking film arguments, with a great variety of poster slogans, and with a use of the press and the platform such as has never been witnessed before in this country.