3 
WAR BORROWING 
i 
THE PAST 
A careful historian of financial thought has lately 
declared that there are few economic questions upon 
which opinion has been so divided and for so long a 
time as the best method of raising funds for the 
conduct of war. 1 For two centuries and a half 
statesmen and economists have debated as to 
whether in time of war all supplies should be raised 
by taxation or some reliance should be had upon 
public credit. In the present war this controversy 
has been waged with new intensity but with old-time 
uncertainty. In so far as settlement has been 
reached as to the adjustment of war expenditure be 
tween taxes and loans, the formula has been oppor 
tunist rather than definitive. 
Curiously enough, the discussion, 2 spirited and 
1 In W. R. Scott’s admirable address to the Economic 
Science Section of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glas 
gow on “Adjustment of War Expenditure between Taxes 
and Loans” (Glasgow, 1917); reprinted in the same author’s 
“Economic Problems of Peace after War: Second Series” 
(Cambridge, 1918). 
2 See, for example, “ Financing the War,” a series of papers 
if 1 The Annals of the American Academy of Political and 
Social Science, January, 1918; also “Financial Mobilization