Ill THE TREASURY Short-term borrowing is an accredited expedient of war financing. The Treasury must be put in ready command of large funds immediately upon the declaration of hostilities; and for the consid erable time elapsing before sources of extraordi nary revenue — war taxes and funded loans — be come productive there is likely to be need of an ticipatory borrowing. The excesses to be avoided are (i) undue reliance upon temporary loans in lieu of definitive revenue, with the possibility of em barrassing refunding operations at perhaps critical intervals; and (2) entry upon a policy of short term borrowing with insufficient banking machin ery, with the danger of descent to bills of credit and fiat notes. These conclusions may fairly be de scribed as in conformity with accepted fiscal theory and as realized in familiar fiscal practice. As employed by the United States in the present war, short-term obligations in the form of certifi cates of indebtedness have served a larger purpose. They have indeed been used in the traditional way, at the outset and to a very limited extent, to bridge over the initial interval until war loans and war taxes should become productive. But much beyond this, certificates of indebtedness have been continu- 73