It may interest our Finance Ministry to learn of what I came across in a non-fiction book I am reading entitled J. Gadsby’s Wanderings, which was written in 1863 and included the following section on a Greek loan, which I would like to share as it is apposite today as back then:

“A loan of 3,000,000 pounds sterling was contracted with Greece for the making of roads and otherwise improving the country but the majority of it has been wasted on a new Palace and other unnecessary baubles, with the interest on the loan being guaranteed by the three great countries England, France and Russia.

“Now, every third year, as the Greeks are unable or unwilling to repay, we – the fleecy sheep of England – have to pay it for them to the loan-holders out of our taxes and are thus shorn of 47,000 pounds per year for a people who are, in my judgment, the most unworthy of any in the world.

“The balance due to this country on account of this loan has reached 800,000 pounds, yet, the last sum received by us from the Greek government in repayment of advances was for 7,740 pounds only and that this was as long ago as 1848.”

The three countries concerned are still awaiting settlement of the loan, which was effected sometime in the 1830s, and taxpayers their money back.

Couldn’t possibly happen again...could it?