Let us see to what extent the interest on this debt weighs upon the Budget:—— External debt £3,794,436 Internal debt 1,004,445 —————————— Total on 1st January 1909 £4,798,881 —————————— In the tabulation of the foreign debt we have not included the new loan of £10,000,000, the stock being known as “Argentine Internal Credit, 1909,” bearing 5 per cent. interest and a 1 percent. consolidated sinking fund, which the national Government has just raised in Europe. This loan, which was readily taken up, was divided in the following proportions: England, £2,960,000; France, £3,200,000; the United States, £2,000,000; Germany, £1,640,000. Taking this new loan into account the total of the external debt is £72,892,428. The various amounts of interest payable on the whole National Debt, external and internal, converted into gold at the rate of 4s. per piastre, represent a total of £4,778,882. As we have stated before, this burden does not weigh exclusively on the Treasury; we must deduct from it the interest paid by the Provinces and the National Bank, or, a sum of £687,628, so that the interest paid by the nation amounts in fact to £4,111,253. Comparing this figure with the total of the general budget, we find that the interest on the National Debt amounts to 25·34 per cent. of the total expenditure, of which 22·3 per cent. weighs exclusively on the nation. Finally, we must not forget that large sums included in the budget are paid into the sinking fund at a rate which should rapidly decrease the debt; a factor which evidently must be reckoned as a compensation. In the face of this enormous debt are we to conclude, with certain authors of repute, that when the payment of the interest on the public debt absorbs more than 40 per cent. of a nation’s revenue, that nation is in the most serious situation, not far removed from bankruptcy? Certainly the theories of these gentlemen are based upon valuable data, which are deduced from the science of finance, or taken from the actual examples of certain nations; but it is also certain that these theories have been formulated with the mind directed toward European countries, in which population, wealth, and all the phenomena of social life are evolved in a slow and harmonious manner; but for countries like the Argentine, countries with enormous natural resources, subject to sudden increases of wealth and population, where all manifestations of progress are abrupt, such theories are not true.