170 BANKING AND BORROWING POLICIES IN 
leads to the conclusion that the transition from the ascension to 
the declension stage of the latest of our borrowing cycles was 
taking place after 1922; and that to the persistent pressure of 
the interest burden, as much as to the general world depression 
in trade, was due the lack of resilience in Australian business 
conditions. Further, it is clearly evident that, in relation to 
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60 
50 
40 
30 
2. i 
0 
INVERSE 
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Fre 
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1915 1017 foig_ 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 
Fra. XV. NEW LOANS AND ANNUAL INTEREST 
Smoothed 5-year moving-average shown heavy. ' 
loans, the discrepancy between ‘receipts’ and ‘expenditure’, i.e. 
the difference between the amount of new loans and the interest 
on the existing debt, has been steadily growing ever since, thus 
increasing both the necessity for economy and the incentive for 
national effort to bridge the discrepancy. That the unhealthy 
condition of indebtedness has merely been exacerbated by the 
operation of other factors, such as static productivity and the 
adoption of ambitious social and building schemes that could 
not be justified on the score of either urgency or reproductive 
sapacity, cannot reasonably be open to doubt. 
A thorough and comprehensive examination of the national 
debt in all its aspects still awaits the patient attention of the 
economist, notwithstanding the very valuable work that has