4 
WAR BORROWING 
sustained though it has been, has had to do almost 
exclusively with the relative extent to which public 
borrowing should be used in war finance, to the 
virtual neglect of the particular manner in which 
such borrowing should be effected. Interest rate, 
maturity, amortization are details of fiscal tech 
nique— the determination of which must in the last 
instance be left to the financial administrator. But 
there are larger and more fundamental problems of 
war-time borrowing which may not be so dismissed. 
Shall the nation raise its loans by long-term obliga 
tions absorbed directly by public subscription? 
Shall the borrowing be in the form of temporary 
loans discharged or renewed from time to time as 
maturing? Shall the proceeds of popular long-term 
loans be anticipated by short-term bank borrowings? 
Each policy is attended with distinctive conse 
quences, not only as to the supply of public funds 
but as to the wider effects upon national industry 
and economic well-being. 
Upon one of these courses — short-term borrow 
ing in anticipation of the proceeds of funded loans 
— our own country, following hard upon recent 
European experience rather than traditional Ameri 
can practice, has entered. If not unconsciously 
chosen, there has been at least little public compre 
hension of this procedure and even less examination 
of its consequences. The close of the first phase 
of our war financing, with the prospect of further 
extraordinary expenditure imminent enough to jus- 
for War,” papers presented at the joint conference of the 
Western Economic Society and the City Club of Chicago, 
June 21-22, 1917.