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Britain to pay off some World War I debt

Some of the debt to be retired goes back even further, to the 19th century.

By Ed Adamczyk
A 1918 victory parade in London. Britain won World War I but is still paying for it (CC/ National Library of New Zealand)
A 1918 victory parade in London. Britain won World War I but is still paying for it (CC/ National Library of New Zealand)

LONDON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Some of the debt from financing the cost of World War I is about to be paid off, the British government announced Friday.

The British Treasury will retire 218 million pounds ($347.9 million) of bonds by paying them in full, part of the 2 billion pounds ($3.19 billion) it accrued to fight the war a century ago. The debt has not been paid because of the bonds' low rate of interest, four percent, but there remain 11,290 registered bond holders to whom the government owes money.

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Over 1.26 billion pounds ($2.01 billion) in interest have been paid on the "Consolidated Loan" bonds since they were issued in 1927, to refinance the cost of the war, by then-Secretary of the Exchequer Winston Churchill.

The bonds include not only the refinancing of National War Bonds, sold beginning in 1917, but British projects that date back to the 18th century. Those include the 1853 consolidation of stock of the South Sea Company, founded in 1711 and gone in the financial crisis it provoked in the 1720s, and conversion of bonds in 1888 that were first issued in 1752, the money used to fight the Napoleonic and Crimean wars of the 19th century.

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