Trade-Strangling Debt.

The obligations of debt-payment have ever played a big part in world-history, but never before was so big a strain put on them as in this fourth decade of the Twentieth Century. For one thing, the world never before witnessed so huge a total of public and private debt, including war debt. So much of revenue is ear-marked for debt service, that the funds for new enterprise are limited, and this fact in itself is a prime cause of lack of trade and lack of employment. A lending system that impoverishes the debtor to the point of stinting him of the necessaries of life—of bleeding him white—is a lending system in danger. No wise creditor is satisfied with such a position.