London
Prime Minister MacDonald no longer had his former high spirits. They had already paid an enormous price, and the cabinet had completely compromised with the financial conglomerates, yet the economic crisis had still erupted.
"Prime Minister, on October 1, the Japanese government announced that it was suspending payments on its international debts. The stock market will probably continue to fall!" Chancellor of the Exchequer Pitt said with a furrowed brow.
This was no longer a matter of one or two companies defaulting. Nearly all the loans and bonds the British Empire had issued overseas were now in default.
For domestic financial institutions, this was undoubtedly snow upon frost. Times had already been hard enough; at a moment like this, such bad news could very well be the last straw that broke their backs.
"Let it fall. Things have already come to this—how much further can the stock market fall?
"This economic crisis has affected such a vast area. Debt defaults were practically inevitable; hadn't we prepared for this long ago?" MacDonald said with a bitter smile.
They were truly letting themselves go now, ready to smash the cracked pot rather than mend it! Yet there really was no good solution at present. More than a dozen countries had announced debt defaults one after another—and how many independent countries even existed in this era?
It was not that they had money and refused to repay it. They simply had no money to repay. Debtors like that were the most troublesome; do whatever you liked, no money meant no money.
Accept physical goods in payment? At a time like this, they would have to dare to accept them first.
Clearly, domestic factories already had mountains of unsold goods piled up. Unless MacDonald was a fool, he would not take in any