“The young men are all of them deeply in debt, and even the old men are often pretty dicky.”
Four Colonial loans have failed during the year.
Mr. Seddon informs us that a paltry reward offered him by a grateful nation had to be raised in no less than five instalments. Indeed, he was for a long time most anxious about the fifth.
It is extremely difficult to get change.
Numerous cases are on record in which gentlemen of good birth have found themselves in omnibuses without the means to pay their fare. Some of them have been thrown out with violence.
“Gentlemen of good birth”
Short temporary loans, such as could once be negotiated by friends for nothing, can now only be raised upon ruinous terms—sometimes as much as 60 per cent.—from total strangers.
Paper is everywhere creeping in in the place of metal, in the shape of cheques, bank-notes, stamps, I.O.U.s, and dunning letters: a state of affairs rather worthy of Spain than of a Race which has spread its language over half the new world.
All these evils are most undoubtedly caused by the drain of gold.