The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 9, 1869.

Is due; but ttie non-official mind will probably con-
clude that this sort of zeal is matter in the wrong
place.

THE ACCESSIBILITY OF AMMUNITION TO SOLDIERS,

It is noteworthy that the Army and Navy Gazette
advises that some system should be introduced into
the army whereby ball cartridges will not be so acces-
sible to the soldier as they are at present. The recent
murders and suicides in the army have alarmed both
the Army and Navy and the United Service Gazettes.
The latter thinks the system of training to which a
soldier is subjected to be chargeable with a great
deal of the violent crimes which take place. If the
most docile man in the world be put into a
corner, provided with a knife, and then subjected to
indignities, he will use his knife, says our contempo-
rary, at last to free himself. It is not so much the
knife, therefore, of which complaint should be made
as the system. But the Army and Navy puts down
the sullenness of brutish natures as the original cause
of these crimes, and thinks the most that can be done
is to remove the means of revenge. It is not sure
that even this will lessen the amount of crime ; there
can be no difficulty, however, in pacing ball cartridge
under lock and key.

SECR,E7ARY BOU7WELL'S MONTHLY
STATEMENT. -

REUTER has thus far improved the cable despatch,

giving the monthly statement of the United States
Debt that they now tell the amount of coin belong-
ing to the Government, the amount deposited in
Treasury for which certificates have been issued,
and the currency at the Secretary's disposal. The
total debt on the Ist instant was $2,481,560,000,
being a decrease of $7,430,000. The coin in the
Treasury belonging to Government on that date
was $66,500,000 ; on the Ist July the amount was
$79,713,672, the decrease being not far from thir-
teen millions and a quarter. The amount of gold
held on certificates was on the Ist of August,
$36,750,000 ; on the Ist July, $30,489,640, show-
ing an increase of over six millions and a quarter.
The operations of the Secretary can be plainly
traced in this result, the sale of the Government gold
lessening the sum held in the Treasury belonging to
the Government, while increasing that held in the
Treasury belonging to others. We would suggest
to Mr. I{EurErt, that his agent in Washington should
be instructed to send also a statement of the Sinking
Fund. lied this been done another result could have
been traced, as we might learn, at least to some
extent, what the Secretary had done during the past
month with his surplus greenbacks. The currency
on the Ist August amounted to $23,250,000, while
on the let July the sum was $37,097,818, showing
a decrease of not far from $14,000,000. The Sink-
ing Fund on the Ist July was $8,867,282, and the
present return when we get it will show an enor-
mous increase, the Secretary during the month hav-
ing largely bought U. S. Securities, opening with
the purchase of $3,000,000 of bonds, and keeping this
up weekly ; all going to the credit of the Sinking
Fund. Purchases, however, have now been reduced
to $1,000,000 under the Sinking Fund Act, to be
continued on alternate weeks during the current
month ; but $2,000,000 a week of bonds are to be
bought by the Treasury during August, to be held
subject to the action of Congress. ALEXANDER
DELMAR, the late director of the Bureau of Statistics,
has published a long letter addressed to the Hon.
GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, commenting on his report
issued on July 1. He begins by noticing the extra-
ordinary fact that it should have been issued at all,
as it is the first since 1865. The only excuse Mr.
DELMAR has heard for passing July without pub-
lishing the June account was, that it would de -
prive the Secretary's annual report on the finances,
when laid before Congress in December, of some of
its interest That he gives as the ostensible, but
the more probable reason he held to be the ma-
terial advantage of exclusive information to the
Treasury ring ; and Mr. DELMAR compliments
the Secretary on having broken through such a
vicious habit. This letter is the second he has
addressed to Mr. BouTWELL, and he has followed
it with a third, which has only just reached us.
In the former he summed up the provisions of
the Constitution and the laws regarding the publi-
cation of the affairs of the Treasury. He goes
on then to comment on the practice of the
Secretaries, and he censures the system of interlard-
ing the statement with remarks and comparisons
not called for by the law, and calculated to mislead
the people. The July statement contained a sum-
mary of the amount of public debt, less cash and
sinking fund in the Treasury, which is neither re-
quired by law nor warranted by truth. The Go-
vernment debts not included in the statement would,
Mr. DELmArt asserts, outbalance the cash in the

Treasury now always used to reduce the total, nor
does he believe it all belongs to the Government, a
portion, small it is true, being trust funds. He then
remarks that it does not transpire whether the sink-
ing fund had not been included in the body of the
statement as well as in the amount in the Treasury;
if it was so included it would deserve a harsh name;
if not, still it had no more right to be counted as cash
than the Treasury building. Successive Secretaries ap-
pear to him to have been under the delusion that this
monthly statement called for by law ought to be a
balance-sheet of the national finances, showing on
one side the liabilities, on the other the assets; all
the cash in the Treastiry being included, no matter
to whom it belongs. From the debt is omitted
$58,638,320 bonds, issued to the various Pacific
railroads, though as much a debt as any of the other
bonds. Finally, Mr. DELmAa complains of the com-
parisons, so instituted with previous months and
years as to calls) an erroneous impression on the
mind of the public, and then he informs Mr. BOUT-
WELL that if the debt bid decreased, whit's it has

not, there would be no credit due to him, as he
had been in office but four months, hence any bene-
ficial change must have been effected by the policy
of hii predecessor. Mr. BOUTIVELL is then lectured
after this fashion :
"It is in the accomplishment of a great object, and not
iu the sanction of specious tables of debt, that you are ex-
pected to employ the powers of the high office to which
you have been called, and it is my heartfelt wish that you
may succeed. But to do this the Treasury practices of the
past six years must be rigorously put aside. The little
tricks of the Treasury ring must bo frowned upon and
abolished, and with them, in time, for it is as yet too
powerful, the Treasury ring itself—if that be possible."
Mr. DuLmAttin a note alludes to the carelessness of the
officers of the Treasury in the matter of figures, the
debt of July 1, 1868, being variously stated in the
same report. We confess that in the numerous
changes it is difficult to follow the Secretary in his
comparisons, and it is no easy matter to understand
the comments of the newspapers on the monthly
statement, as they vary according to the point of
view from which the writer sees them, and the item
Which mainly attracts his eyes, while none of
them are as yet familiar to the public. This is illus-
trated by the statements forwarded through the
Cable to Renter's office and to Printing-house-
squate, the figures almost invariably differing. Let
any one add $7,430,000, supposed to be the decrease
during the month of July, to the total of the debt,
all the figures being given by the correspondent of
the Times, and he ought to arrive, though he does not,
at what the debt was on the Ist July. If the Trea-
sury officers are careless, if editors are not " smart"
at addition and aubatraction, and if compositors
throw in the wrong
numerals, by the time the state-
ment reaches Europe from Washington the figures
will generally undergo a change. Buta lecture on sta-
tistical errors from Mr. DELMAR is 1 ke the pot up-
braiding the kettle for being black. If ALEX.
DELMAR has a statistical reputation, it is for turn-
ing things top sy-turvey, and he can scarcely touch
'a figure without making a blunder. Take, for in-
stance, his own letter, wherein he commences by
stating that the July return has invariably been
passed over since 1865. These are his words
"It is the first one of its kind that has been issued, se

far as lam aware, since 1.865. The July monthly state-
ment of the debt has invariably been passed over by the
Secretary."
Even in these few words there is a contradiction.

The former portion implying a doubt, and the
second positively asserting a fact, yet both refer to
precisely the same point. Proceeding to comment
on the assertion that this was the first July state-
ment made since 1865, he contrasts Mr. BOUT-
WELL'S action therein _ _ _

" With the general policy of the Department during the
last six years. Within the whole of that period, as vari-
us publications testify, I have maintained a close and con-
stant scrutiny of its operations, and this trifling resump-
tion of correct practice is literally the first one of them
that I have been permitted to applaud."
Any one but Mr. DELMAR would have known that,
frcm July 1, 1865, to July 9, 1869, when he wrote,
the period was not six years ; but Mr. DELMAR,
having been at the head of the Bureau of Statistics
may be above censure for an error for which child-

ren at school are whipped• The only other item
connected with the finances received during the
week has reference to what the Washington cor-

respondents of the New York papers assert. The

Herald, 7 imes, Tribune, World, and others, say that
"Some influential members of Congress have announced
.hemdelves in favour of the taxation of the Bonds held in

Europe. They, it is asserted, propose that the tax
should be collected on the presentation of the coupons, so
as to bring foreign bondholders under the operation of

the income tax. A Bill for this purpose has been pre-
pared, and will bo presented immediately Congress re-

assembles."

Next day the Bonds were heavy on the London Stock

Exchange, falling th and the old influence seems to
be again at work to check the upward tendency.

Everybody knows who has purchased these securi-
ties, or ought to know that there are influential mem-
bers of Con
/RMO not only intend to advocate that

policy, but who have already introduced and strongly
supported such measures. The question has been
argued again and again, and is likely to continue to
be argued, and we can only understand such a
message being paid for and published by a clique of
"bears." If we set to work to enumerate all
the resolutions, good and bad, likely to be intro-
duced after Congress meets, we would make out the
list, and devote the whole of this issue to the sub-
ject; but we fear it would prove neither amusing
nor instructive to our readers. Our'advice to the
holders of United States Bonds is—lf you cannot
trust your own judgment to anticipate what the
action of a common-sense people on such a point
will be, go to a man whose common sense you can
trust, and who knows something of the citizens of
the Republic as a nation, and ask him what course
they are likely to take. lie knows as much as any
correspondent, and his opinion is quite as good ;
then keep to that opinion, no matter what the talk
is either in Congress or in the newspapers. If the
holder is inclined to put us down as among the
people of common sense who know something of the
national tone of the United States, we thus answer
his question—The Republic as a nation will do
nothing manifestly injurious to its interests, al-
' though it may have hundreds of politicians ready
to sacrifice that interest to forward their own pur-
poses. If taxing the bonds of the foreign holders
be a breach of contract it will injure the National
Credit, wherein the gain, being small as compared
with the loss, it would be a bad bargain, and
JONATHAN as a rule does not make bad bargains ;
if otherwise unjust to the foreign bondholders, the
injustice will appear in the general discussion, and
the holder may rely on the fact that the nation will
not do anything the majority are persuaded is dis-
honest. The question then for the bolder to de-
cide is whether in equity the United States would
be justified in taxing these coupons or not ; and as a
man of plain common sense answers that question,
so will the people of the United States answer and
act, nationally. Granting the Government right
in equity to levy on each coupon presented for
payment the regular income-tax paid in the country,
Congress may pass the law, by which means the
foreign bondholders will be brought within the
tax. But the expediency of this course has then to
be considered. The effect would be to lessen the
value of the bonds abroad, not only to the extent
of the tax, but to the measure of the insecurity at
which European nations might appraise probabili-
ties in the future. The bonds must fall in the
foreign exchanges to the extent of the tax, and if
they remain unmoved at home where the tax is now
levied, and no direct effect by it be produced, they
would begin to flow to America until the disturbed
equilibrium had readjusted itself. If the Govern-
ment designed to float a new loan, at a reduced rate
of interest in European markets, the effect would be
injurious to a greater extent than would be the gain
from the tax ; but if the Government does not pur-
pose to effect such an object, trusting to the
money market of the United States, should it de-
sire in the future to get better terms than the pre-
sent, then, if equity allows, Congress will probably
pass a measure likely to be popular. The masses
desire to see the " bloated bondholders" taxed, and
not content with the knowledge that the tax is
included in the levy from income they wish to see
the money deducted at the Treasury from the
coupons, when there can be no mistake about it.
The leaning of the mass will have its weight, but
it will not outweigh equity and expediency. No
law will be passed which separates the interest on
Bonds from other property for the purpose of
taxation, for that would be confiscation, the pro-
posed measure merely being to levy the income-tax
now in force in the country on the coupon, when
presented for payment at the Treasury.