our rule. The accounts of the powerful favorites who replaced the sovereign were drawn up by our agents, and they always satisfied the shallow minds by promises that in the future there would be savings and improvements. Savings from what? From new taxes? This might have been asked but was not asked by those who read our reports and plans. You know to what their carelessness has led them, what financial disorganization they have reached in spite of the wonderful diligence of their people.
Protocol No. XXI
I will add one more detail regarding domestic loans in addition to the report which I made at the last meeting. I will not speak any more of foreign loans, for they filled our coffers with the national money of the Goys. There will be no foreigners in our government, nobody outside.
We profited by the corruption of the administrators and by the negligence of the rulers in receiving sums that were doubled, trebled, and even more, loaning the Goy governments money which in reality was not needed by the states at all. Who could do the same with regard to us? Therefore, I will only set forth details in regard to domestic loans.
In announcing such a loan, the governments open a subscription to their bonds. To make them accessible to all, they vary the denomination from one hundred to thousands, and the first subscribers are allowed to buy below face value. The following day the price is artificially raised on the pretext that everybody hurried to buy the bonds. In a few more days there is a pretense that the treasury is filled and that it is not known what to do with the money, which has been oversubscribed. (What was the use of taking it?) The subscription is evidently considerably in excess of the amount asked for. Therein lies the effect, for it is thus demonstrated that the public has confidence in the government obligations.