Quotulatiousness

December 4, 2014

“Hiram Maxim’s business was secure”

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:04

Paul Richard Huard has another in his series of blog posts on the weapons of the 20th century:

During the early morning of Oct. 25, 1893, a column of 700 soldiers from the British South African Police camped in a defensive position next to the Shangani River.

While they slept, the Matabele king Lobengula ordered an attack on the column, sending a force of up to 6,000 men — some armed with spears, but many with Martini-Henry rifles.

Among its weapons, the column possessed several Maxim machine guns. Once a bugler sounded the alert, the Maxims spun into action — and the results were horrific.

The Maxim gunners mowed down more than 1,600 of the attacking Matabele tribesman. As for the British column, it suffered four casualties.

The British military not only measured the Maxim gun’s success by the number of Matabele killed in action. They could gauge the Maxim’s potential as a weapon of psychological warfare.

In the aftermath, several Matabele war leaders committed suicide either by hanging themselves or throwing themselves on their spears. That is how Earth-shattering a weapon the Maxim gun was.

“The round numbers are suspicious,” C.J. Chivers wrote in The Gun, his history of automatic weapons. “But the larger point is unmistakable. A few hundred men with a few Maxims had subdued a king and his army, and destroyed the enemy’s ranks. Hiram Maxim’s business was secure.”

A British Maxim gun section that took part in the Chitral Relief Expedition of 1895. Public domain photo

A British Maxim gun section that took part in the Chitral Relief Expedition of 1895. Public domain photo

Fully Fitted Freight (1957)

Filed under: Britain, Economics, History, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:02

Published on 29 Nov 2013

How freight was moved around Britain by rail in the 1950s, although in reality a lot of it was unfitted.

If you think your mortgage is bad, here’s a bit of perspective

Filed under: Britain, Economics, History, WW1 — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:02

Britain is deeply in debt, like most western countries, but some of the debt is much longer term than usual:

Britain will pay off all of its debt used to fund World War One next March, when it redeems a government bond first issued more than 80 years ago to help pay for the conflict.

The finance ministry said on Wednesday that it would redeem the 1.9 billion pound ($3 billion), 3.5 percent War Loan — a perpetual bond which means it has no fixed maturity date — on March 9 next year.

Issued in 1932, the War Loan was used to refinance debt accumulated during World War One, which ended in 1918.

Some market experts said they would miss the bond as a rare historical curiosity in modern finance.

“For those of us who’ve been looking at the gilt market for a long time, a little bit of magic has fallen out of the market,” said Barclays fixed income strategist Moyeen Islam.

What needs to be pointed out however, is that they’re not actually paying off the WW1 debt: they’re eliminating that particular interest-bearing bond (because it’s now paying a higher rate of interest than the UK government’s other debt instruments). The money to pay off the current holders of those bonds will be borrowed on the market at current market rates. That’s the government equivalent of paying off one credit card with another … you still have a debt, it’s just being held by a different lender now. Tim Worstall explains:

As background, yes, Britain ran up big debts in WWI. Those were those National War Bonds. And interest rates changed a bit, finances moved around, and in 1927 it was decided that those National War Bonds should be changed. And the change was to turn them into perpetual bonds: the capital would never be paid off, there would just be a stream of interest off into the indefinite future. The government retained the right to buy them in at any point (a “call option” on them) which is what Osborne is exercising now. One more thing: there were other bits and pieces of debt lying around. Odd bits and pieces from the 19th century, debt from the Crimean War, from those (not large enough) attempts to deal with the Great Famine in Ireland, bits and pieces relating to the Napoleonic Wars and even, would you believe it, some parts that related all the way back to the South Sea Company and the South Sea Bubble of the 1720s (although that connection is pretty remote).

All of these pieces were dumped into the same pot and “consolidated” into these perpetual bonds. They were and are thus known as “Consols”.

What Osborne is going to do is exercise that call option and bring those bonds back in. But he’s not actually “paying off” those debts. He’s going to issue other, more conventional, gilts in order to have the money to give to those sending in their Consols. He must be doing that: the government really is borrowing £100 billion a year and change at present. This is no more “paying off” those debts than my taking out a bank loan to pay off my credit card is paying off debts. It might well be a very good idea to do that, given the difference in the terms of the debts and the interest rates, but it’s still not paying off, is it?

H/T to Elizabeth for the original link.

QotD: Roman medical advice

Filed under: Books, Europe, Health, History, Media, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Before I forget it, I must record two valuable health hints that I learned from Xenophon. He used to say: “The man is a fool who puts good manners before health. If you are troubled with wind, never hold it in. It does great injury to the stomach. I knew a man who once nearly killed himself by holding in his wind. If for some reason or other you cannot conveniently leave the room — say, you are sacrificing or addressing the Senate — don’t be afraid to belch or break wind downwards where you stand. Better that the company should suffer some slight inconvenience than that you should permanently injure yourself. And again, when you suffer from a cold, don’t constantly blow your nose. That only increases the flow of rheum and inflames the delicate membranes of your nose. Let it run. Wipe, don’t blow.” I have always taken Xenophon’s advice, at least about nose-blowing: my colds don’t last nearly so long now as they did. Of course, caricaturists and satirists soon made fun of me as having a permanently dripping nose, but what did I care for that? Messalina told me that she thought I was extremely sensible to take such care of myself: if I were suddenly to die or fall seriously ill, what would become of the City and Empire, not to mention herself and our little boy?

Robert Graves, Claudius the God, 1935.

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