War Debt – Banking – Shipping
Tipologia: Paragrafo/Articolo – Data pubblicazione: 26/01/1918
War Debt – Banking – Shipping
«The Economist», 26 gennaio 1918, p. 120
Turin, January 8
During the period from July, 1914, to October, 1917, the Italian market has absorbed readily a mass of State securities which in time of peace would have seemed impossible. Here is the summary of all issues during the said period (in millions of lire):
| July, 1914 to June, 1915 | July, 1915, to June, 1916 | July, 1916 to June, 1917 | July to October, 1917 | |
| War Loans | 1,000 | 3,628.8 | 3,985.5 | 2.3 |
| Treasury Five-years Bonds, 4% | 130.9 | 19.0 | – | – |
| Do 5% | – | 365.9 | 1,141.6 | 497.4 |
| Do Three-years, 5% | – | 102.2 | 270.0 | 236.3 |
| Exchequer Bills from 3 to 12 months 3-5% | 21.2 | 384.1 | 3,439.4 | 1,779.9 |
The war loans totaled 8,616.6 millions, the Treasury bonds of the various denominations 2,754.3, the Exchequer bills 5,604.6 million lire, with a general total of 16,975.5 million lire. To this there are to be added 7,531.6 million gold lire of foreign (British and American) loans, which were equivalent to 9,791.9 million paper lire. Meanwhile the increase in note issues was as follows:
| Notes issued by issue banks and loaned to Government | 2,665.9 |
| State notes of 5 and 10 Lire directly issued by the Treasury | 1,141.5 |
| Million Lire | 3,807.4 |
If we add to 16,975.5 millions of internal loans 9,791.9 millions of foreign loans and 3,807.4 of notes issued, we get at the grand total of 30,574.8 million lire, which represent the real new indebtedness of Italy during the European War.
One of the greatest economic forces of Italy is its net of small saving and popular banks, which are diffused all over the country, and draw from local sources their funds, which are mainly devoted to financing agriculture, commerce, and industry. Some figures on the deposits of all species of banking institutions in Italy will be interesting (in million lire):
| July 30 | |||||
|
| 1910 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 |
| Banks of issue | 99.3 | 100.0 | 649.6 | 504.7 | 412.7 |
| Banks (ordinary) | 869.7 | 1,044.6 | 664.8 | 907.7 | 1,355.4 |
| Popular banks | 699.7 | 703.5 | 583.4 | 707.9 | 880.4 |
| Co-operative banks | 444.3 | 507.8 | 427.4 | 531.7 | 669.2 |
| Savings banks | 2,460.1 | 2,800.0 | 2,552.4 | 2,905.1 | 2,432.7 |
| Postal savings fund | 1,657.1 | 3,121.3 | 1,861.7 | 1,987.6 | 2,352.9 |
| Savings foundations (Monti di Pieta) | 187.9 | 214.5 | 220.0 | 245.4 | 284.6 |
| Rural banks | 72.6 | 103.7 | 96.8 | 112.3 | 150.9 |
| Total | 6,490.7 | 7,595.4 | 7,056.1 | 7,902.4 | 9,538.8 |
Somewhat belated statistics have been recently published on, shipping movements in all the ports of Italy.
| 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | |
| Steam vessels |
|
|
|
|
|
| Number (000’s omitted) | 164.2 | 169.3 | 171.8 | 123.6 | 91.4 |
| Millions of tons of merchandise carried outwards and inwards | 25.7 | 25.5 | 23.3 | 22.7 | 21.4 |
| Passengers (in millions) | 2.9 | 3.2 | 2.8 | 2.0 | 1.5 |
| Sailors, men, and officers (in millions) | 4.4 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 3.1 | 2.1 |
| Sailing vessels Number (000’s omitted) | 189.0 | 184.8 | 173.1 | 138.9 | 116.1 |
| Millions of tons of merchandise carried | 6.3 | 6.3 | 5.8 | 4.9 | 3.7 |
| Sailors, men, and officers (in millions) | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Totals Number (000’s omitted) | 353.3 | 354.1 | 344.9 | 262.5 | 207.6 |
| Millions of tons of merchandise carried | 32.0 | 31.8 | 29.1 | 27.6 | 25.1 |
| Sailors, men, and officers (in millions) | 5.3 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 3.7 | 2.6 |
