From the fact that a very large amount of capital has been of recent years invested in loans to foreign governments, the question of sinking funds and other kindred matters has come prominently into notice; and matters which at one time were only looked upon as belonging to the theory of compound interest, are now become of great moment to thousands of persons who have invested, or purpose to invest, their money in the above-mentioned class of security. Various causes appear to have led to the large increase in the popularity of foreign loans among certain classes of investors. No doubt, the rapid growth of unemployed capital has considerably reduced the rate of interest realizable on first-class home securities, and has induced persons anxious to obtain a high rate of interest to invest their money elsewhere. From the nature of the case, however, even a fairly high rate of interest would not generally be sufficient inducement for an investor to lend money to a perfectly irresponsible foreign government, which might at any time, if it thought fit, renounce all its past financial obligations. Whether the general practice of providing for the repayment of loans has arisen from the scruples of foreign governments to accumulate a large national debt like our own, or whether, on the other hand, it has been found necessary to give an undertaking to repay the loan over a term of years, in order to make the loan at all palatable to investors, I cannot say; but the fact none the less remains, that very generally provision appears to be made, in the case of loans by foreign governments, for repayment in a shorter or longer period of time.