FINANCING THE CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS 275
there should be difficulties in obtaining satisfactory contracts
 for the construction work involved.
Table 84 is an answer to a hypothetical question that
may be stated as follows: What annual sum will Missouri
have to raise by means of taxation in order to pay the interest
on and to retire $40 million of bonds issued on the same
date, bearing interest at an annual rate of 424% on the
average, and maturing serially so that the total required in
any year for interest payments and redemption will be
uniform with all other years during the twenty-year period
over which the bonds are spread? The annual sum required
would be $3,075,046. Obviously, the amount required for
interest would tend to decline, and the amount needed for
redemption would remain constant, if the retirements were
evenly spread over a period of years. In Table 84, however,
the decrease in interest payments and the increase in the
amount available for redemption offset each other, with the
result that the total available for debt service remains uniform
 for each year throughout the period. The result is that
the amount of bonds which can be retired at the outset is
relatively small, and, therefore, the total required for debt
service on an annual basis is greater than the average that
would be required if the retirements are spread evenly over a
period of years, the interest being regarded as a separate
factor.
Table 85 has been constructed on the assumption that
forty years would represent the maximum maturity for any
part of the issue. Otherwise, the assumptions are identical
with those underlying Table 84. Obviously the annual
amount required for debt service is much less in this case,
although it is more than one half as much because of the
interest factor. On the forty-year basis, the annual amount
needed is found to be $2,173,726.
Manifestly, it would not be desirable to issue odd amounts
of bonds as shown in Tables 84 and 85. These tables were
compiled on the theory that the annual amount needed could
best be shown on the basis of a constant requirement for debt
service. The amounts shown in the second columns in each
table could easily be adjusted to some conveniently rounded
number so that the bonds would be issued in multiples of