The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-01 00:00:00

LECTURE OF IIIE, SECRETARY U. S.
TREASURY.

Secretary Boutwell delivered an interesting lec-
ture on the 10th January, in Lincoln's Hall, Wash-
ington. After discussing the history of the Union
he proceeded thus to speak on the National Debt :
" -A nation cannot act fully and freely before the
world, she is not independent in the largest .and
best sense, unless she is comparatively free of debt,
with capacity to raise revenues much in excess of
ordinary demands, and a credit unstained by any
act of dishonour, and relieved of every apprehen-
sion even in the minds of the most timid. This
statement suggests the only remaining difficulty in
our country's path. As the men of the Revolu-
tionary War did not hesitate to assume their share
of the burden of the war debt, so I trust that you,
who have made so great sacrifices for the Union will
courageously imitate their example. At the close of
the Revolutionary War the interest-bearing debt
of the country was about $75,000,000. The popu-
lation was less than 3,000,000, but accepting that
number as the nearest approximation to the truth,
the debt averaged $25 to each person. 'the, pre-
sent interest-bearing debt of the United States
can be put at about $2,100,000,000, and it is ,
not unreasonable to estimate the present popu-
lation of the country at 42,000,000. The debt,
therefore, averages 50 dollars for each person.
It is safe to assume also that the property of
the country in proportion to its population, esti-
mAted at its gold value, is more than three liens as
are ,t, as it was in 1780 or 1790 even. If we as-
sume the value of property in 1790 to have been
equal to $3OO for each inhabitant, it would be pro-
per to estimate the aggregate property of the coun-
try at the present moment to be at least $l,OOO for
each inhabitant, or an aggregate of $900,000,000
at the former period against $42,000,000,000 at the
present time. But whether these estimates of the
aggregate property of the country at the two diffe-
rent periods be, correct or not, it cannot well be
denied that the present average is more than three
times. the average in 1790. The result is that at
the former period the debt was eight and three-
tenths per cent., while at the present time it is
only five per cent. of the property of the country.
This estimate is at best but an approximation
to the truth ; yet relatively it is an under esti-
mate, rather than an over estimate of the pre-

sent resources. I cannot doubt that it was as
difficult for Mr. Jefferson's Administration and
for the people of. the country to reduce the
debt during his term at the rate, of $3,500,000
per annum, as it is for us to reduce the debt at
the rate of $100,000,000 per annum. From 1801
to 1802 the country was subjected to all the taxa-
tion which those iu power dared to impose, for the
reduction of the debt was a leading feature of Mr.
Jefferson's policy. Our condition at the present
time is peculiar. The revenue is large, and after
the payment of ordinaty expenses, pensions, and
interest, we have a surplus of $100,000,000 annu-
ally for the redaction of the principal of the debt.
The Treasury is free from embarrassment, and we
have no occasion to borrow a dollar for any pur-
pose whatever. Provision can be easily made for
the payment of the Ten-Forty • Bonds, amounting
to $194,000,000, in 1874, when they will be re-
deemable, or they may be postponed for thirty years
more, as the public interest may require. The
amount of $283,000,000 due in 1881 can be p tid at
maturity. For the present we are at ease in finan-
cial affairs. The proposition for a new loan. has
one purpose, and one only—the reduction of. the in-
terest account—and if this cannot be accomplished,
we have no occasion to intrude upon the markets of
the world. Our power to plaze a new loan at
a reduced rate of the, inter, st is, in my opinion,
wholly dependent upon the magnitude of our surplus
revenue. Nothing but the menace of I, aytnent will
induce the holders of Six per Cent. Bonds to sur-
render them and accept a bond bearing a lower
rate of interest. If you reduce the revenue so that
it is barely adequate to meet the necessary expenses
and the accruing interest, the holders of Five-
Twenty Bonds will resolutely resist every effort to
induce them to accept a lower rate of interest.
Our net interest account, excluding Pacific Rail-
way Bonds, is $125,000,000. The Government
has already bought $90,000,000 of its own bonds, the
interest on which is paid to the Treasurer, leaving
our actual interest at about $120,000,000. The
reduction of the interest account $18,000,000 a
year will enable us, if we choose to make this the
basis of a sinking fund, to pay the principal of the
interest bearing debt in thirty-five years, if we re-
duce our revenue to the necessary expenses of
the Government and the amount needed to pay
the interest at the present rate. That is to say, a
saving of $18,000,000 annually in the amount of
interest will in thirty-five years, with the accumu-
lated interest, be equal to the bonded debt of the
United States. Ought there then, in the presence
of such a possible advantage, to be any doubt as to
the wisdom of maintaining our revenue at a higher'
rate for one or two, or even three years, if ',Rees,
sary ? With a large revenue for three years the
result is surely accomplished in one way or other.
If the public accept the new bond at a lower rate,
the question is settled in favour of the Government;
if they decline the opportunity the revenues will
liquidate the principal of the debt, and the interest
will disappear proportionately. In either case the
country succeeds. If, however, vie at once reduce
the revenues till they are sufficient for ordinaty
expenses, pensions, and interest on the public debt,
and the public creditors shall consequently refuse
to receive a new bond at a lower rate of interest,
what will be the condition of the country thirty-
five years hence ? It will have paid $4,200,000,000
of interest upon the 'publie debt, and the entire
principal will then be unpaid. Again, I say it is
not sufficient for a nation that it is politically in-
dependent of foreign or hostile Powers. It is not
sufficient that the people are all citizens, that they
are free and equal, or even that political power is
in their hands. To all these mu-t be added na-
tional financial independence. This America has
not. This she cannot have until she diminishes per-
ceptibly her public debt, and renders its payment
certain within a generation. I dare not cite
examples, but the nations are many that are crippled
in their policy and retarded in the development of
their industries by the magnitude of their debts.
Their example should be a warning to us. The
public debt is the only serious result of the war of
any considerable magnitude now remaining; but it
is a result so serious as to denim(' some pr. sent
sacrifices for the future public good. They are
sacrifices, however, which will not interfere with
the general prosperity of the country ; nor is the
exigency so exacting as to leave us without the opor-
tuuity of relieving from time to time those interests
that are most heavily burdened. On the one hand,
by courage and the manful acceptance temporarily
of a burden, considerable no doubt, but not insup-
portable, we secure the permanent prosperity and
financial independence of the country. On the
other hand. if we shrink from the task and the
duty, may I not say, of mastering thcs difficulties
at once, we increase the aggregate burden of taxa-
tion, and leave to another generation the comple-
tion of a work which should have been exclusively
our own."

"NEW TRACKS 1N NOR 7 17 AMERICA.'

No. 11.

(From the Anglo. American Times.)
It is difficult to decide whether the country or
the old inhabitants of Arizona and New Mexico are
the most interesting. Both 'lerriteries are discussed
as a whole for convenience, and Dr. Bell gives the
inhabitants as follows :-1. The Americans about
13,000 ; 2, the Mexicans, 75,000 ; 3, the Pueblo
Indians, 16,000; 4, the Wild Indians, 23,000. The
Pueblo, or town Indians, are the most remarkable
and important tribe to be found in any part of the
United States or Canada ; in fact, the only native
race whose presence on the soil is not a curse to the
country. The Indian of the Plain Dr. Bell soon
found to be cruel, dastardly, and degrading; but in
the Rio Grande Valley he encountered another race
as different as light from darkness. The first he
met was west of the Pecos, dressed in buckskin and
tightly fitting breeches, a girdle around the waist,
and moccassins on the feet. Their heads were bare;
hair, falling to the eyebrows, cut square, the rest
gathered into a queue bound with red cord, a band
passing over the hair in front. They were short in
stature, thickly built, with quiet, intelligent faces,
and large sorrowful eyes ; he never saw a Pueblo
Indian even smile. Each pushed before him a
wicker work basket on wheels, filled with grapes,
and the travellers bad to pay $lO for some 601bs. to
80113 s. They are only to be found south of the 36th
parallel; and there is no proof but vague tradition
to show that they came from the North or spread
northward of the Rio Grande Valley. They were
early converted to Christianity by the Spanish
missionaries. The villages of the Rio Grande differ
little from the Mexican, the houses being larger
and loftier, of one storey, fiat roofs, each house
containing several families, watch towers rising over
the roofs at the corners of the villages. In the centre
of the chief house is a good sized room, partly exca-
vated, the estufa, where the sacred fire was always
surfing. Now it is a council chamber, though
Eacinh
some places the sacred fire still burns.
Pueblo has a separate government , the Governor
being elected from the Sages for life, and presides'
aver the Council. Next to him is a war captain,
with a lieutenant, who arrange all campaigns. The
decal major regulates Church matters, and the old
men make the laws, and elect officers, except the
Governor, who is chosen by universal suffrage. They
have five dialects, and the people of villages have
to resort to Spanish, as a medium for communica-
tion. The fortifications are striking in the isolated
pueblos. Laguna, on the summit of a limestone
cliff, has great natural advantages. There are
neither windows nor doors On the outer wall of the
first story ; the second rises a little back from the
first, leaving a ledge to pass around. From this
ledge ladders descend, and they are drawn up when
required. Acorea has three storeys built on a simi-
lar plan, but the most interesting is Zuni, having
six terraces, one over the other, with ladders leading
to each. There is a tradition of a great flood.
Spanish influence not being so strong at Zuni, the
old traditions are kept up, the belief being in the
One Great Spirit, and in Montezuma, His Son,
who is again to appear from the East, then to
unite all nations under His banner. Albinos
are common ; plurality of wives is not allowed,
and the women are virtuous. The author gives
many interesting particulars of those tribes of the
Pueblo Indians. The first American to visit them
was Major Emory in 1846. When the Pietas dis-
covered the party to be Americans and not Apaches
they were delighted, and the Americans and the
Pueblos at once fraternized. The Government has
helped them with arms and implements, and it is
hoped that not only will the extermination of these
interesting people be prevented, but that the tribes
will be restored, the children being numerous. Dr.
Bell says that the Papagos are physically the
finest men he ever saw. Of five he met at a ranche
not one was under 6 feet 2 inches. Following this
chapter is another on the Wild Tribes, the Navajos
and Apaches, fortunately few in number. The
Mogollon occupy lofty table lands, in which the head
waters of the Itio Gila rise, and from these unex-
plored fastnesses they make raids on their more
civilized neighbours. Northern Sonora has for the
last century been the favourite field, and as the
power of Spain declined, these treacherous savages
harried the country into a desert. Although few
of the Apaches are killed in fight they are fast dying
out. The two tribes which form the lowest tyi eof
humanity are to be met with between the Rio Verde
and the Rio Colorado, the IValapais, and the
Tamps, though comparatively harmless. Th 3
ralleys of the Colorado extending from the end of
the Black Canon almost to the head of the Gulf,
are inhabited by tribes occupying an intermedi-
ate position between the Pueblo and the wild
Apache, the Mojaves once numbering 10,000.
Dr. Bell considers that the town-building Indians

vere the skirmish line of the Aztec race, coming
from the southern provinces of Mexico through
Sinoloa and Senora towards the Great Canon of the
Colorado. Captain Fernando Alarcon, pas ing up
the Colorado in 1540, was at first unable to com-
municate with-the inhabitants ; but higher up be
reached a people who understood the language of
the Mexican he had brought with him, and told him
of a similar people who dwelt to the east in stone
houses, wore long white robes, and came yearly to
buy maize. The Apaches, who probably then were
agriculturists, were driven into the mountains,
being treated by the Aztecs as barbarian hordes.
The town-builders reached the Pueblo Creek,
the Aztec mountain's, and the San Francisco peaks,
when they were stopped by the impassable barrier
of the canons of the Colorado and Chiquito rivers.
Diverging they turned eastward until they reached
the Rio Grande Valley, down which they worked,
thus coming, as their traditions state, from the
north. This is'an interesting speculation, and tray
be as Dr. Bell thinks. There are those who maintain
the reverse, peopling New Mexico from Asia by way
of the Aleutian Islands, and ascribing the do-
minion in Mexico to t heir settlements on the Rio
Grande, the Gila, and the other valleys of thee
Territories. About two years ago an interesting
article appearedin the Edinburgh Review on the Ar-
cemology of North America, and the writer evidently
considered the Astecs to be Asiatic in origin, what-
ever the way they reached the country. The Spaniards
in 1680, after a long contest, held undisputed sway,
andeas usual used the people as slaves, of which, both
tradition and the prisons remain to attest the fact.
At last the Pueblos rose and swept the Spaniards
completely from the land. The inhabitants of
Santa Fe escaping, founded El Paso, the most
northern point retained by the whites. .After seven
years hard fighting some of the tribes were re-
subjugated, but Zuni and other places were never
reconquered. There appears to be little doubt that
the country has changed for the worse; the rainfall
being less, forests diminished, spots once productive
now barren, flowing springs now dry. But this
change is-advanced as the cause of the depopula-
tion, whereas the depopulation is the reason of the
change. The Spaniards destroyed the beauty of the
couu try, as well as its peace and civilization. They cut
down forests in New Mexico as in Old Mexico, aye,
as in Spain, thereby diminishing the rainfall, and
took no pains, by irrigation and cultivation, to re-
trieve the folly and barbarism of their act. Before
the Spaniards set foot on the plateau of Mexico, it
blossomed as a garden, now it is arid and bare as
the country around Madrid. It is true that much
of the soil, both of New Mexico and Arizona, has
lately been covered with lava, but this is not suffi-
cient to account for the change which has been
wrought. Having followed the author in his sketch
of the inhabitants, we propose in our next num-
ber as briefly to accompany him in his sketch of
the country.