The quantity of available wealth to which nations might appeal was another temptation.
Borrowing became comparatively easy. It is quite impossible, of course, to accurately meas ure the wealth of the entire world, especially at the earlier dates tinder consideration, for even at the present time we can only estimate the wealth of a score of the principal nations, hut an examination of the wealth figures of a few countries for which data for earlier years can he had shows an extremely rapid growth in the last 40 years, and suggests that the available wealth of the world upon which the nations requiring loans were able to draw had very greatly increased during that period in which they developed great debts for other than war purposes. The wealth of the United King dom, for example, is estimated as having been about 30 billion dollars in 1865 against 90 bil lions in 1914; that of France is estimated at 23 billions in 1865 and 65 billions in 1914. Thus the wealth of these two fairly representative coun tries of Europe, speaking in broad terms, trebled in the half century immediately preced ing the World War. In the case of the United States, a newer country and having special facilities for the increase of its wealth through the development of its producing powers, the rate of growth has been much greater, in creasing from 16 billion dollars in 1860 to ap proximately 200 billions in 1914, our own wealth having been in 1914 fully 12 times as much as in 1860, a rate which could not of course be applied to the world as a whole. In certain other countries, Canada, Australia, South Africa and parts of South America, the gain was also rapid, hut the rate of growth of the world's wealth is fairly exemplified by that of France and Great Britain, and it seems probable that the world's available wealth practically trebled in that 40-year period, in which the nations of the world were doubling their na tional indebtedness in times of comparative The purposes to which the increase in debts was devoted are not difficult to find. A half century ago the world was calling for railroads, steamships, inter-oceanic canals, better harbors, waterways on land, telegraphs and ocean cables to further facilitate intercommunications and the interchange of merchandise and its equiva lent, money and credits. About one-third of the railways of the world are now governmen tally owned, and have been largely paid for by borrowed money. Of the 220,000 miles of rail way in Europe about 120,000 are government owned; of the 70,000 in Asia, 45,000 belong to the governments of the countries in which they exist; of the 28,000 miles in Africa about 17,000 are owned by the governments of the respective colonies into which that continent has been divided or by the governments of the countries controlling those colonies; of the 23,000 miles in Australia over 20,000 were con structed by the government, while of the 360, 000 miles in America only about 10 per cent are government 'owned. A large part of the
railways of Russia,, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Egypt, India, .Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Dutch East Indies are owned and in most cases operated by the respective governments. All of the telegraph lines of the world, except those in the United States, are owned by the governments of the countries in which they operate. When we add to this the cost of the great undertakings in water transportation, inter-oceanic canals, harbors, in land canals and the deepening of rivers it will be apparent that the mere matter of transporta tion has absorbed a very considerable part of the indebtedness accumulated in the half cen tury prior to 1914.
While much of the growth of national debts between the great war periods was for legiti mate improvements in transportation and world progress, it must be admitted that the prepara tions for possible wars had much to do with the large national expenditures which en couraged the debt habit. During the period of debt making without war the coun tries of Europe built up and maintained as a permanent part of their establishments enor mous standing armies, which not only with drew large numbers of persons from the pro ductive industries, but required large sums of money for their equipment and maintenance, and at the same time they greatly enlarged their navies, and this was undoubtedly one of the important causes of the very large increase in the world's accumulation of indebtedness during the period 1874-1914, in which world debts doubled in a time of comparative peace. The 1913 debts of the European countries were in round terms $32,000,000,000, Asia $4,000, 000,000, South America $2,300,000,000, North America $2,100,000,000, Africa $1.500,000,000 and Oceania $2,000.000,000. Of the world's national debts in 1874, which aggregated at that time about billion dollars, about' 15 billions were owned by European countries, and the remainder distributed among the other grand divisions, that of North America alone being approximately 3 billion dollars.