Though the exact figures of the new French 6 per - cent. loan are not yet. known, it seems to be generally believed that the total will be considerably in excess of any previous operation of the same kind. Five loans in all have been floated by France during the war and subsequently. 'The first was a 5 per cent. loan issued in 1915, which produced 13,339 millions of francs. The second, in the following year,' amounted to 10,266 millions. After this the State tried 4 per cent: loans issued at a considerable discount. The 4 per cent, 1917 loan produced 10,382 millions and the 4 per cent. 1918 21,587 millions. Early in the present year the Government had to try another loan, and reverted to the 5 per cent, type. It brought in 10,797 millions. In each case a large proportion was represented by the cancellation of previous indebtedness. In the present instance, a 6 per cent. issue at par, the total may reach or even exceed 30 milliards.
These figures of course do not imply that the loan places anything like such a large sum at the disposal of the Government. The joan merely enables part of the floating debt to be transformed into Government stock, which has ihis great advantage, from the State's point of view, of not being repayable at short notice. The State merely postpones settling some of its debt to citizens. The loan does not even obviate further borrowings from the Bank of France.
Tne only road to real} improvement in the financial] position is the reduction of State expenditure and increased production of food, raw materials and exportable goods.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.