CONTINUOUS BORROWING 235 
true. The choice-he offers is contained in the statement that 
‘the annual income, and especially that part of it which is 
disposable, must always be more or less doubtful : and estimates 
of national wealth, whatever method be employed, have even 
less chance of approximating the real position’. If this judge- 
Tasre LIV 
Public and Private Wealth® compared with Indebtedness 
(In Millions Sterling) 
Year. 
1915 
1921 
1923 
1925 
1998 
Public 
wealth. 
517 
657 | 
725 
825 
a00 
II. 
Private 
apealth. 
1,620 
2,166 
2,425 
2,835 
3.150 
111. 
Total 
wealth. 
Iv. 
Total 
debt. 
Raternal 
debt. 
VI, 
Uncovered 
debt. 
2,137 380 261 
2,824 828 389 171 
3,150 905 435 180 
3,660 1,013 500 188 
4.050 1.094 600 194 
Percentage of : 
Year. 
Viol. 
17 to 111. 
Vie III. Vite III. 
1915 13-6 17-8 11-7 — 
1921 126-0 20-3 18-7 6-1 
1923 | 124-8 28-7 13-8 5-7 
1926 122-8 | 30-7 15-2 57 
10928 121-5 27-0 14-8 4-8 
ment is accepted, it would seem that the sounder criterion 
of a country’s capacity to borrow depends rather upon the 
known value of the disposable income than upon estimates, 
still largely conjectural, of the wealth standing as security for 
the indebtedness. 
Indeed the issues to be faced must be drawn even more finely 
than that, since it is desirable to indicate the point at which 
borrowing becomes excessive. The tests which it is imperative 
to devise and apply concern not so much the total debt in rela- 
tion to the total wealth, the ultimate comparison, as the imme- 
diate annual liability for interest in relation to the disposable 
portion of the national income, the immediate comparison. In 
attempting to set a limit beyond which borrowing becomes 
1 From the estimate by C. H. Wickens, The Wealth of Australia, paper before 
Section ‘G’, A.A.A.S. 1923, and Year Book, 1928.