The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

POST.—So soon as it was discovered that the
Federal Government were unable to crush in its
commencement the rebellion which threatened the
existence of the American Union, persons of a spe-
culative turn of mind proceeded to estimate the
probable duration of the civil war, on the basis of the
material resources of the two belligerents. The re-
spective numbers of the populations of the Northern
and Southern States were duly noted, and the
sources from which the expenditure of the war was
to be met were made the subjects of careful investi-
gation. Modern warfare very closely resembles
litigation, and victory in the one case, as in the
other, generally ranges on the side of those who
possess the longest purse. But those who believed
that pecuniary considerations would influence either
of the rival Confederations, soon discovered their
mistake. Neither the North nor the South pos-
sessed considerable revenues, but this circumstance
did not in the slightest degree tend to curb
an expenditure which, literally and not meta-
phorically, soon became boundless. For the North
debt had no terrors, so confident were they that
their enterprise would ultimately he successful,
and that their obligations would be satisfied out of
the pockets of the vanquished ; whilst, on the
other hand, the South considered, and with justice,
that no sum could be too high to pay as the price of
their independence, And so the war proceeded,
and the debts of the belligerents increased, As,
however, notwithstanding the recklessness with
which the Old Republic has pledged its credit, and
the necessity imposed on t!-e infant State of follow-
ing its example, a day of reckoning must sooner or
later come, it may not be unadvisable to consider
the financial conditions of the Governments of the
two Confederations, It is some little time since re-
ports have been published either by the Secretary
of the Treasury at Washington or at Richmond ;
but this circumstance will not preclude us from
forming a tolerably correct estimate of the present
position both of Northern and Southern finance.
On this occasion we will confine our attention to the
national ledger of the Northern States. We pub-
lished in our columns a day or two since a report,
prepared in the beginning of the present year by
Mr. Stuart, her Majesty's Secretary of Legation at
Washington, which set forth in very clear language
the receipts and expenditure of the Federal Govern.
ment for the past four years. To this report we
will now take the opportunity of referring, making
such comments as the truly extraordinary nature
of its contents may set forth. Before the seces-
sion of the Southern States the public debt of the
United States was a little in excess of £13,000,000,
and the annual revenues of the Government at
the same time were between £16,000,000 and
£17,000,000, the expenditure being such as io leave
a surplus of about £500,000. The financial year
terminates in Washington on the let of July, and
on that day, in the year 1862, some fifteen months
after the accession of Mr. Lincoln, the debt had
been raised to £105,587,509. In 1863 it had in-
creased to £225,624,883, and on the Ist of July in the
present year it was estimated that it would reach
£346,397,667, and that in 1856 it would fall
little short of £500,000,000. Whilst, however,
the general state of the debt was thus increasing
the annual revenues and expenditure increased in
proportions equally amazing. The receipts, which
for the year ending in July, 1861, were a little
under £18,000,000, rose to close on £120,000,000
in the following year; in 1863, to £185,000,000;
and in 1864 were estimated to reach £155,000,000.
The expenditure during the same years being—in
1861, £17,367,000; in 1862, £117,215,000 ; in
1863, £183,941,000; and in 1864, £-154,000,000.
For the year ending in July, 1865, the estimated
expenditure is £154,376,000, and, as the receipts for
the same year are only set down at £42,000,000, the
balance would of course have to be raised by way of
loan. Glancing, however, from these totals to the
items of which they are composed, the first circum-
stance that strikes the inquirer is that the bulk of
the receipts is composed of loans—the legitimate
revenues of the country showing a comparatively
trifling increase since the commencement of the war.
Thus in 1862 the receipts from taxation are only
£2,009,000 in excess of those of the previous year,
being about £11,000,000 from all sources, whereas
the sums raised by loans had mounted from
£8,000,000 to £108,000,000. In 1863 the receipts
from taxation amounted to £25,000,000, and tE ose
from loans to £160,000,000. In 1864 taxation was
expected to have brought into the Exchequer
£33,000,000, but did not produce three-fourths of
that sum, whilst the loans increased the existing
debt by upwards of £140,000,000. An analysis of
the items of expenditure shows, as might be ex-
pected, that the immense drain has been occasioned
almost exclusively by the war. The Army and Navy
Departments, which together cost about £7,000,000
in 1861, cost in 1862 nearly 190,000,000, in 1863
£136,000,000, and in 1861 upwards of £200,000,000.
Tho average annual expenditure at the present rate
may, therefore, be set down at about £150,000,000,
and of this sum about £134,000,000 may be con-
sidered the annual expense of the war. T'ne
simple fact that even if the war comes to an
end in the middie of next year the national debt
of the Federal Government will be close on
£509,000,000, bearing interest amounting to about
£20,000,000, is one which stands without parallel
in the financial history of the world. In four short
years a debt has been created which, if not so great
es that which England took a century to accumu-
late, will necessitate the payment of as large, if
not a larger, sum annually to the creditors of the
State. Virtually no attempt has been made (as the
figures we have qnoted chow) to pay by taxation
even a small portion of the enormous expenditure
which the war has occasioned ; and it remains to be
seen whether, at the conclusion of the war, the
people of the Northern States will put their
shoulder to the wheel and contribute a larger sum
than in 1861 covered the entire expenditure of the
undivided Republic, merely to pay off the interest
on the debt which they have so recklessly contracted,
Nor is it alone the immense debt, and its accruing
interest, that the inquirer into the financial pros-
pects of the Northern Republic should alone take
into consideration to know what the peace establish-
ment of the United States cost before the secession
of the South ; but who can say what expenditure
it will entail on the termination of the war? What
is to be done with the gigantic armies at present
scattered over the American continent ? Will the
individuals composing them lay down their arms
and once more turn to the cultivation of the peace-
ful arts ? We doubt it very much. Can either of
the Confederacies henceforth dispense with a stand.
ing army I.' To this question we would wish that
an affiirmative reply could be given ; but a little
consideration only leads one to fear that the answer
of both republics will be in the negative. What,
then, will be the probable amount of the revenues
which the Government at Washington will be called
upon to raise by taxation at the conclusion of the
war in order to keep the vessel of the Stat afloat and
maintain the national credit ? They must certainly
reach £40,000,000, but will more probably touch
£60,000,000. What means the population of the
North have of raising these revenues we will ex-
amine on a subsequent occasion. For the present
we merely place before the public as precisely as
possible the financial position in which the Federal
Government will find themselves placed, assuming
that the first act of Mr. Lincoln's successor is to
suspend hostilities and re-establish peace between
the rival Republies.
HERALD,—It is not often that our French con■
temporaries venture to describe the sentiments really
entertained towards them by their neighbours upon
the other side of the Pyrenees. Recently there has
been an honourable exception to this rule in the
person of M. Auguste Villemot alcorrcspondent of
the Temps. This plain-speaking gentleman was
present, as were also other French journalists, at
the inauguration of the North of Spain Railway by
the King of Spain. Upon taking a tour in the
Peninsula he quickly discovered the genuine feeling
of the Spanish people, or at any rate of that portion
of them with which he became acquainted, towards
their unwelcome visitors. The unfortunate writer
had to complain not merely of cold and scanty hos-
pitality, but during his route from San Sebastian to
Vittoria had to submit also to the significant cry of
the villages, of" be off with you," in their language.
M. Villemot from this reception, so unsatisfactory
to his national and personal pride, has had the good
sense to draw some pertinent conclusions, coloured,
perhaps, a little by his Parisian habits of thought.
The Spaniard is not the uncivilised or inhospitable
being that our amusing contemporary would repre-
sent ; upon the contrary, he is distinguished by a
hearty, though it may be stately, hospitality. Apart
from this colouring, M. Villemot's inference is in
the !main undeniable. The Spanish people do not
love Frenchmen. Nor is this surprising, when we
consider the characteristic differences between the
two nations, as well as the history of their relations
to one another. It is the boast of a Frenchman that
he belongs to the gayest, lightest-hearted, and most
cosmopolitan race in the w')rld. This character is
exactly that which di2qm.hfies him from mixing
kindly with the staid and sober Spaniard, who is of
all others the leest inclined to put upwith anything
foreign, Just as in other countries, in England as
much as in France, the romance of their history
leads them back to the period in which conflicting
elements, whether native or foreign, were made
to cohere in one people, so Spanish romance points
to the epoch in which the foreigner was expelled as
the most glorious one in the annals of Spain. It'
there is a person thoroughly detested by a genuine
Spaniard, it is the so-called citizen of the world.
Patriotism he understands, of that he has given
proofs marked with his beat bleed, but pan-Teuton-
ism, pan-Slaeism, paneHelleniene, pan-Gallicism,
are not to his taste, There was a period when he