This second loan will probably be for three or four hundred millions pounds sterling, bear 4 per cent, and issue at par.

The November loan was issued at 95 per cent and it was announced in Parliament that the Bank of England would loan the issue price at one per cent under the Bank rate.
That the loan was fully subscribed is not contradicted by the small fraction of discount soon quoted on the full-paid loan.

One could fully pay the loan, taking the discounts on undue maturities and sell at a fraction under 95 and still make a profit.
I believe the estimate of an annual English surplus for investment of $2,000,000,000 per annum is far too low.

This figure is upon the basis that only about 20 per cent of the river of interest, dividends, and profits flowing annually to British pocket-books is available for reinvestment.
In the present war stress and with economy practised to-day more by the capitalist classes than the laboring classes, the amount of money for reinvestment should be far greater than this.
English finance will cut its cloth according to the pattern.

If there is only $2,000,000,000 per annum of surplus earnings to put into the war, that money will be spent; and if England has 50 or 100 per cent more, that money likewise will be spent, but spent so judiciously that the largest possible sum from it is kept in channels of English trade.
The British Empire will work and finance the fight thus within a circle, and right on its own base.
The surprising thing is that it can be called upon to extend financial help to its allies.