The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—The inevitable truths of finance are at
length beginning to dawn upon the American mind.
For three years past the acute and intelligent
people of the States have been deluding themselves
into a belief that by some fortunate privilege they
"ould escape the operation of inexorable laws; that
they ld p
s end without paying, and borrow
without feeling the debt. In these fond impres.
nuts,,zed by the official declara-
tion, titan tLlev have accepted
sions they were eon
tions of their own states
accordingly the first effects of ati italatea currency
as evidence of abundant wealth, Withtittt so ImA
as a misgiving that any day of reckoning wee at
hand. Mr. Chase found money enough on conve-
nient terms for the exigencies of the war,
and it was an article of the popular creed that
when the war was over the public debt could
be easily liquidated by the illimitable resources of a
young, growing, and gigantic nation. These views,
however, are now dissolving, and in their place
some ugly prospects are gradually assuming shape
and import. The other day, as we informed our
readers, proposals were actually made in the It ouse
of Representatives for doubling, at a single stroke,
the taxes now paid by the population of the Federal
States, and we have now a letter written by Mr.
Thurlow Weed—a name of weight in the Northern
States—for the instruction of his countrymen, in
which the magnitude of the accumulating difficulty is
unreservedly acknowledged. Of the remedy which
Mr. Weed'suggests we shall presently speak,but we
must, at any rate, allow him the merit of looking the
affairs of the nation boldly in the face. Mr. Weed com-
putes that by the time the war is finished and the
Union restored a debt of £600,000,000 will remain to
be supported by the people of the States. What may
be the case at so very indefinite a period it is rather
hard to conjecture, but we know that Mr. Chase him-
self owned to an actual debt of £220,000,000 as long
ago as Midsummer last, and the intelligence re-
cently brought reveals no improvement in the
prospects of the Federals. However, we may very
safely presume that the Americans will find them-
selves with a debt of tremendous magnitude to be
endured or discharged ; and the question is whe-
ther this obligation is to be left to chance, or
lightened as far as practicable by timely provision.
At present the national liabilities are rolling up at
a prodigious rate. The debt itself increases by about
£150,000,000 a year, and besides this enormous ad-
dition of principal, there are heavy demands accru-
ing on the score of interest. Mr. Chase has admitted
that the cost on this head will amount in a few
months to a yearly charge of £17,000,000,
and this calculation makes the very best of
the case. It is beyond doubt, however,
that from £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 will soon
be added to the outgoings of the Federal Govern-
ment for interest on borrowed money alone,
and if a system like this is to go on, what can we
expect to be the end of it ? The House of Repre-
sentatives appeared to think that it must not go on,
but that the country, instead of raising an ordinary
revenue of £45,000,000 to meet an expenditure of
£190,000,000, should raise twice that sum. This
was to diminish the necessity of borrowing, and re-
tard in some degree the rapid accumulation of debt.
Mr. Weed omits that particular consideration, and
addresses himself to the methods of liquidating the
debt, whatever it may ultimately be. His scheme
we may, perhaps, briefly characterise, in terms
now current, as a proposal for " divorcing the
labourer from the soil," or, at least, for pro-
moting that species of separation in the case of
labourers to be hereafter attracted from the Old
World to the New. He proposes that the vast
public lands of the United States should, instead
of being alienated on the present terms as bounties
on immigration, be preserved as the base of public
credit and the fountain of public revenue. Under
the approaching circumstances of the country
these possessions will be too valuable to the State
to be squandered in the shape of cheap farms. They
must be kept in hand, and applied as they improve
in productiveness and worth to the imperious neces-
sities of a Government overwhelmed with debt.
This proposition deserves notice, not only for its
recognition of the tremendous problem to be one
day solved, but for its unhesitating sacrifice of
that very law which has been reasonably repre-
sented as the great attraction of the United States
in the eyes of labouring classes at home. The
" Homestead Law," says Mr. Thurlow Weed,
should be absolutely repealed ; sa that the loss of an
extraordinary and unique advantage would be to
America one of the first and ear,iest consequences
of its civil war. It is not impossible that the emi-
grant of five years hence may find himself under an
arbitrary Government; it is ceitain that he will find
heavy taxes, and if, besides these unexpected cur-
tailments of republican privileges, he loses also the
prospect of becoming at once the proprietor of land
on terms within everybody's reach he will have lost
most of the present inducements to prefer the New
World to the Old. But the American press has not
been sloW to discern that Mr. Weed's project would
probably effect little good. The calculations are
that the utmost amount of revenue derivable from
the public lands thus treated would not suffice to
pay more than one-thirtieth part of the aggregate
interest due on the estimated debt; so that while
immigration might be discouraged, and one source
of American prosperity impaired, the counterpoise
of gain would be insignificant in proportion. We
can imagine that this reckoning may take too
little account of the enhanced value which these
lands may acquire—a result which must occur
sooner or later in America as in every other coun-
try. Still, as this consequence itself depends upon
the peopling of the country, and that process would
be retarded by the adoption of the policy in ques-
tion, it would seem a wiser course to let the more
liberal land system continue, and reap national
riches, not from hoarded territory, but from the
fruits of that territory in the hands of industrious
owners. The men of the Old World have been the
making of the New, and this, at any rate, is not a
conjuncture when America can dispense with the
importation. The only sound conclusion on this great
question of finance is one which we at length find
advocated in the Federal press. The war should be
prosecuted to a termination, whatever that end
may be, and the people in the meantime must con-
sent to be taxed. It is dawning upon the Americans
at last that while they have been astounding
Europe, as they believed, by the immensity of their
" resources" and the unexampled magnitude of
their war, they have simply plunged into that abyss
of Old World embarrassment from which it was
their proudest boast to be free. They now discern
the fact that since the year 1861 they have unheed-
ingly incurred a national debt which will probably
equal in its charges the national debt of England.
It they say that they are capable of sustaining this
debt, they say no more than the truth. No doubt the
thirty millions of America can pay taxes as well as
tl,e thirty millions of England, and without greater
suffering. But then they must convince themselves
of the fact that England and America stand for the
future on just the same tooting. The mistake they
have hitherto made is in supposing that America
could do as England has done, and yet remain as
America was. They must adopt: our system of
Budgets as well as our system of putt ic Stacks,
and we can tell them that at present the; have
made but very little way hi the realisation oi• the
truth. Their scheme for raising £70,000,000 on
foreign and domestic luxuries will never answer.
Luxuries will never bear so excessive a burden, or
yield so exorbitant a contribution. The burden
must be more universally distributed, and less
reliance must be placed on indirect taxation, and
especially on protective tariffs. A revenue of
£90,000,000 is not to be raised without an
income-tax, and an income-tax levied for the
first time on a people said to be the richest
in the world ought to produce considerably more
than one-fifteenth part of the whole income re-
quired. In short, there is no Royal road to ease
and comfort in the matter of taxation. The imposts
necessary for producing a large revenue cannot be
shuffled on to the shoulders of the rich, or juggled
into the duties on foreign goods—least of all into
those on foreign " luxuries." All classes and all
sources must bear their fair share in just proportion.
Of course, the Americans can accept these condi-
tions if they please. If they mean, indeed, to pay
their way according to their new lights, they must
needs do so, nor is it for us to say that they will
rgoebeuete.prAidee t
hbey b theur
.
sufferadoption
aonfyththeipn we (Ida np endure
e
den and yet be prosperous, so may
easily ; but to do so they must unlearn the ideas
they have hitherto entertained, and teach them
selves, as we have done, that debt can only be paid
by taxes, and taxes only furnished by the patient
submission of all classes alike to
the hard, though
equitable exactions of necesity.
HERALD.—Mr. Ferrand's list of charges against
of long
the Whig Admiralty ocials is a
one, but we
take leave to say it has not been disproved. And,
notwithstanding the outrageous insolence
of Lord
Clarence's Paget's reply last night,
w e think public
opinion, judging by the light of
similar proceedings
on more recent occasions than that referred
to by
Mr. Ferrand, will decide in favour of the pursuer.
When Mr. Ferrand
complained last year in the
House of Commons of the tyranny of the Whig
Admiralty, which prevented "
a free exercise of the
franchise by the dockyard employees,
Sir C. Wood
made the following announcement When I was
ge
First Lord the patronsof the dockyards was
given over to the superintendents and since then
the Board of Admiralty h 9 •
have had nothing to do with
promotion in the employment of the yards." But
to confute this dogmatism
of Sir C. Wood Mr. Fer-
rand referred to other and higher authorities. The
late comptroller of the navy, Sir Baldwin Walker,
stated before the Dockyard
Commission of 1860
that " The papers on the aubject of promotions are

e ,enerally
3y
come
forwarded to the Admiralty,
sometimes
marked to me for report; e'ird, and
direct to me. I submit my report to t‘le,
3cretary
that is generally dealt with by t,..e "
and ar ,
ations'
to the Admiralty ; he has these pr
Sir Baldwin Walker subsequently forgot b.
and with a candour wholly foreign to Whib
gone into the question with the Duke of Somers
explained that of later years—" I have gener.gll,ll
dt
with reference to promotions, This originated it
difference between the Secretory and myself. The
duke from that period has gowe into the question
himself. But as carious are these contradictions,
they are only the
preface to other revelations. 1n
1859, when Mr. Ferraod first contested Devonport,
ha atatel3 that grievous con:
plaints were made to hist
to the effect that for many L'innths previously VOP
cancies had occurred in the doOkY
a,rd which were
not filled up. At that time Sir P
akington wash such
First Lord of the Admiralty. 0.1
hearing
complaints Mr. Ferrand made inqn-
hies at the
Admiralty ; but though he applied tit,
-ee or four
times nothing was to be elicited. Hoy, 'ever, the
n
truth came out at last, and it was discov., 'reaot
only that vacancies did exist, but that a list "
those vacancies was to be had at the Whig cet.ll!
troller's office, though, in the spirit of his orde
he had studiously forborne to inform the Boars
of Admiralty of the fact. Unfortunately this
discovery acme too late, for soon after Lord
Derby's Ministry being thrown out, the Duke of
Somerset succeeded Sir J. Pakington, and then
within a few days every one of those vacancies was
filled up 60 as to strengthen the Whig Government.
Mr. Ferrand, however, stated
an some 30 or 40
i 2
his belief that these
vacancies consisted of no less t
permanent appointments, and that, t,,,,out:h filled up
in ten days after the Duke of Somerset b
soome First
Lord of the Admiralty, they had been yt:l.Peeell
kept open for some ten months or so by Sir ..13a Idern
ty
Walkerwith the view of waiting for an oppor,`lo
to appoint his own creatures. But these extra...qui"
nary disclosures do not end here. Whilst Sir -Be
Walker admitted " there was some little delay on'
my part in transmitting some of the names," Sir T.
Pasley, at that time the admiral superintendent of
the dockyard, stated " delay began in one year
(1858) and ended in another (1859), but there was
not a year's interval." But Sir B. Walker's own
statements exhibit a still greater incongruity. It
was not enough, first of all, to deny the report of
any vacancies, and then produce the list. Sir B.
Walker at different times furnished wholly dif-
ferent reasons for keeping open these vacancies.
At one time, before the commissioners, he alleged
the many vessels building by contract, though Mr.
Ferrand asserts that no vessels were built by con-
tract either in 1858 or 1859. At another time, in
a letter to the electors of Devonport, in A ugust of
1860, when Mr. Ferrand contested the borOugh of
Devonport twice in one month, Sir B. Walker' gave
as his excuse for not filling up the vacancies re-
ferred to, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer h. ad
made a mistake in his calculations, that there hat.
been no money allowed for the salaries of the officers
in question, but that now there was some, and the
offices had all been filled up. Again whilst Sir B.
Walker affected to blame the returns of the super-
intendent, Sir T. Pasley expressly affirmed that
" the delay was at head-quarters; it was some;
where between Somerset House and the Admiralty;"
that is, it was at the Comptroller's office.
whilst Sir B. Walker pretended that " the vacan-
cancies not being filled up is not detrimental to the
public service, because the moment there is a
vacancy the officers of the yard have the power of
putting a person to act," Sir T. Pasley said, there
was a long interval when some of the subordi;
nate offices in the roppery were not filled up.
No wonder that such contradictions somewhat be-
wildered the royal commissioners, or that they de-
sired Sir B. Walker to appear before them again
and explain his conflicting statements. But that
was not to be. A Deus ex machina appeared in the
person of the Duke of Somerset, who shipped off Sir
Baldwin to the Pacific, far away from the tribunal‘
of royal commissioners. The upshot, however, Was
a temporary success for the Whigs. It was doubt"
less the lucky occupants of those vacancies which,
in 1860, turned the day against Mr. Ferrand, as it
might be those vacancies unfilled which turned the
issue against him in 1859. Well, we have no doubt
Sir B. Walker is a most honourable and gallant
officer, but when it is asserted, as it was last nights
that he was quite incapable of conferring an ap-
pointment for political reasons, we hardly knout
whether to wonder more at the audacity or the
simplicity of those members who made such a state'
ment. And when Mr. Ferrand is assailed for " slaw"
dering" an absent man, the noble lord and his ins'
maculate
npredecessor,
his cowardice,
mrMr
a. B
lke
nah 1 lae en
tirtr2,
sr n
shouldaalb s Osborne,enccaeltaon
mindand the
t
very suspicious circumstances under which be wad
spirited off to his command. Corruption is bad
enough in all conscience, but hypocrisy is worse;
land when we notice the indignation of honourable
gentlemen who sit on the Ministerial side of the
house at the bare idea of any imputation of the undue
exercise of patronage for political purposes, we echo
Mr. Ferrand's answer, sad call up the name of
" Augustus Stafford." As to the language used by
Lord Clarence Paget last night, it is of a piece,
allowing for the peculiarities of the individual, with
the conduct of the Ministry during the session. 00
more than one occasion the Premier himself hag
replied to the leader of the Conservatives in terms
such as have been seldom addressed by a Prime
Minister to the chief of the party in opposition.
But that we pardon in consideration of the petulance
incidental to age and the vexations of a position to
which the noble lord can hardly lend himself.
is rather too much when a Secretary of the Adini.
ralty introduces into the House of Commons the
" rowdyism" of a United States Congress, and,
secure behind the barrier which modern feeling has
raised, !ndulges in language which twenty years '
ago he would have been compelled to make good on
a very different field.