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 relation
 to the total wealth, the ultimate comparison, as the immediate
 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.