The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-01 00:00:00

1,241,218,212

Ordinary expenses 5298,840,371
including the cost of the late Indian war and the
large sum paid under the direction of the Engi-
neer Bureau for river and harbour improvement.
Mr. Atkinson goes on elaborately to show that in-
stead of extravagantly the Government has been
conducted more economically than Buchanan's,
though hampered by a hostile Executive, while
admitting the charge of excessive expenditure
against both Administrations. The difference, ac-
cording to him, was that the Buchanan expenditure
was to arm and equip the South for its war against
the Federal Government, while the extravagance of
the last three years is the result of appointments to,
and maintenance in office of corrupt officials by
Andrew Johnson. ' Mr. Atkinson thus recapitulates
his figures

IWe have proved that the ordinary expenses of the Go-
vernment for three years and a quarter, including the
suppression of Indian hostilities and nearly $10,000,000
for river and harbour improvement, havo been at a less
rate than during the last fiscal year prior to the war.
We have proved that to the alleged maxi-
mum debt, Aug. 1, 1865 $2,757,639,571
there must be added a portion of the lia-
bility of $920,778,252, which existed
April 1, and of which there was still un-
settled on the Ist of August the sum of 530,043,758

and we then have the actual maximum debt $3,287,733,329
IN WHAT FORM WAS THIS DEBT ?
Ist. Due within three years.
Ist —Tho liability not then entered upon the
books was all recognized and bottled

within three years, and most of it was
due and paid within one year $530,043,758
2d—The debt upon the books was mostly
due at short date, and consisted of the
following obligationa :
Overdue on which interest had ceased 1,503,020
Compound interest notes due in 1866 and
1867
7 3-10 Treasury notes due in 1867 and 1868 830,000,000
Certificates of indebtedness due in 1866
Temporary loan on 10 days' notice, 5 and 6
per cent
One and two-year notes at 5 per cent
Suspended requisitions
Six per Cent. Bonds issued before the s ar,
and duo in 1867 and 1868

Total debt due within three years 51,825,201,473
Due Debt on Demand.
Notes known as legal-tender notes, or
" greenbacks," which the Depublican
party now recognizes as a debt due on
demand, and has paid in pert; or pro-
poses to pay, or to fund in inturest-b,sar-
ing bonds 5433,160,550
Fractional currency

$459,505,311
Less cash in the Treasury 88,218,055 $371,287 25
Funded Debt.
Old Five per Cents. due in
1871 and 1874
5 per Cent. 10-40 Bonds due
in 1904 172,770,100
6 per Cent. Bonds due in
1880 and 1881
6 per Cent. 5-20 Bonds due
in 1882 and 1884
Bonds issued to the Pacific
Railroad, due 1825 1,258,000

1,091,244,600

Maximum 53,287,733,329
Mr. Atkinson challenges a denial that the Re-
publican party has managed the finances of the
country with a success before unknown in the
world. Until he entered upon this examination he
had not been convinced of the necessity for the
issue of the legal-tender notes as a war measure,
and he asserts the desire of the party to remove
from the people at the earliest moment the curse
of an inconvertible paper currency. If extrordi-
nary efforts have been made, a substantial re-
sult is shown, and this has been secured in spite
of that worst form of taxation upon consumers,
inconvertible paper money. Financial courage ap-
pears to have been lost since the war ended, or pro-
positions to issue Bonds for a long term at a low
rate would not have been made. That the United
States pays a high rate, and that its credit is bad, is
due to the luxury with which it indulges itself of
Democratic leaders, as Pendleton, Forrest, and the
like. " The fraudulent proposition of the Demo-
cratic party, seconded by a few•weak Republicans,
to substitute Bonds bearing no interest for the
Five-Twenty Bonds, thus defrauding our creditors
without paying our debt, has, for the time being,
prevented us from availinq ourselves of the privi-
lege of real payment, and has kept our rate of' inte-
rest very high ; but let us keep our faith in the
nation, and not give up the idea of paying the debt
within twenty or thirty years." He estimates
$200,000,000 as a charge already paid for the dis-
honest proposals of the Democratic party, and says :
" One Republican member of Congress in Maine,
one in Missouri, and I know not how many more,
have been or will be rejected by their constituents
solely because they were weak enough to be misled
by the false counsels of false leaders."
The following are his remarks on the reduction of
taxes :—" We have reduced our taxes $167,000,000
per annum, and when George H. Pendleton alleges
that the taxes now amount to $500,000,000 a year
he wilfully asserts what he knows to be false. We
may well repeat the pertinent question put, I be-
lieve, by the Hon. William Whiting—' Are Pendleton
and the Democratic leaders intentionally attempt-
ing to destroy the credit of the nation, in order
that we may be unable to obtain the means to put
down the new rebellion which they propose to in-
augurate? But what is more important we have
reduced expenses yet more':--
For the year ending June 30, 1865, the ex-
penses of the War Department were... $1,031,323,000
For the year ending June 30, 1868, the en-

tire expenses of the army proper, exclud-
ing bounties, State claims, and other
legacies of the war, were... 56,613,000
For the current year the estimates are less

than .....
The expenses for the Navy Department for

the year ending Jane 30, 1865, were 123,000,000
Year ending June 30, 1868
Estimate for the current year 17,300,000
" We are charged by Mr. Pendleton with heavy
deficiency bills, but we reply that they are rendered
necessary by the frauds of the honourable Demo-
crats of the whisky ring kept in office by Andrew
Johnson."
Mr. Atkinson takes a different view of the national
wealth of the United States from that given in the
Nation. He calculates immigration to have added
to this wealth since the war $63,000,000 directly,
and $900,000,000 indirectly. On the opening of
the Pacific Railroad he sees in the dry plains be-
tween the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains
a new central Flowery Kingdom established by the
Chinese, who are peculiarly skilful in irrigation,
and well calculated for that and other work, such
as the production of cotton and silk. He quotes
these words of Mr. Wells :---." Since the termina-
tion of the war more iron furnaces have been erected,
more pig iron smelted, more bars rolled, more steel
made, more coal mined, more lumber sawed and
hewed, more vessels built upon our inland waters,
more houses constructed, more manufactories of dif-
ferent kinds started, more cotton spun and woven,
more petroleum collected, refined, and exported,
than in any equal period in the history of the coun-
try, either before, during, or since the war. .

•
Since the termination of the war over 5,000 miles
of new railroad have been constructed and opened
for use in the United States, to say nothing of the
lines in the Southern States which have been re-
stored and reopened." Referring to agriculture,
Mr. Atkinson observes :—" The agricultural pro-
ducts of the United States have steadily increased
both in quantity and value since the termination of
the war, and the product of agriculture increased in
quantity all through the war. We are rapidly re-
storing the number of animals, both horses and
cattle, to their normal proportion. It may be that
this year the crop of grain will be in full proportion
to what it would have been had there been no un-
natural or forced stimulus to manufactures by which
labour has been diverted from agriculture."
The Southern States are thus disposed off :—" Let
us glance at the condition of the South. It is
alleged that the reconstruction plan of Congress
has been a failure. Let us test it by economic re-
sults. It is alleged that the South has been ground
down under a military despotism ; that there has
been no labour that could be relied upon ; and,
lastly, that they have had no capital. The last
allegation, we will admit, because we know that
the tendency of Northern capital to the South has
been checked by its insecurity. The crops of this
year are, therefore, free from mortgage, for no one
would trust a planter this last spring. Now let us
see what is the result. if the South has had
neither labour nor capital, their crops must be the
spontaneous production of nature, and they have—
First, An annual supply of food for the consump-
tion of the whole population, say 10,000,000 to
12,000,000. Second, A crop of cotton which pro-
mises to equal.or to exceed that of last year, which
has been proved by the investigation of our Cotton
Manufacturers' Association to have been nearly or
quite 3,000,000 bales, or much more than the com-
pilers of the commercial tables will admit, and more
than three-fifths the largest crop ever raised before.
Third, A crop of rice which the Charleston Daily
l 0,00 during ri the
ng
News asserts will prove sufficient to drive all
coniing y
im-
ported rice Fourth,50,000 outof homethe
tiercesmarket of
sugar. Fifth, A crop of tobacco so large
as to make
it one of our main dependences as an article to be
taxed.

"THEY ARE RICH ALREADY.
" In short, the South has a saleable surplus of the
aggregate value of $400,000,000 to $500,000,000,
and all this with their harvest of food is, if we can
trust the evideuce of their Democratic leaders, the
spontaneous product of nature. What may not be
the result when General Grant is elected, peace
assured, labour rendered effective, and capital safe?
t 4 -

THE WAR WORTH ITS COST.
"Let me express my profound conviction that, as

a purely economic question, the war will pay for
itself, since the increased production of the
Southern States, which will follow the abolition of
slavery, will in the next 20 years more than pap
the entire cost of the war by which slavery was
ended. The question of taxation is therefore a
mere question of distribution of the burden, and
we must see to it that the late rebel States do not
throw off all the burden and reap only the benefit
by allowing them to aid the Democratic party in
repudiating the debt."