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

MISCELLANEOUS SOURCES.

The receipts under this head have been derived from
the following sources, enumerated in the order of their
importance :
First—Premium on sales of gold.
Second - Sales of military and naval stores and of cap-
tured and abandoned property.
Third —Direct taxes.
Fourth—Public lands.
The receipts from the last have been comparatively in-
considerable.
April 1, 1865, to June 30, 1865
July 1, 1865, to June 30, 1863
July 1, 1866, to June 30, 1867
July 1, 1867, to Juno 30, 1868

Total

$178,743,769

RECAPITULATION..

Custom 3
Internal revenue
Dliseellaneous

$548,978,536
812,336,278
178,743,769

Total..

51,540,038,583

The above total, therefore, represents the exact amount
which the Treasury of the United States has received from
sources other than loans since the close of the war.

The main question is, How has this sum, amount-
ing to three-fifths of the present debt, been disposed
of ? The liability contracted on army account
formed a part of the debt as much as if the bonds
had been issued and entered on the Treasury books
on the Ist April, 1863, though the disbursements
up to 30th June, 1866, on this account were as
follows :

April 1 to Juno 30, 1863 5414,196,377

July 1 to Sept. 30, 1865 .. 165,369,247
Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 1865 68,122,511
Jan. 1, 1866, to June 30, 1866 50,857,923

Total 15 mouths

. .
During the same period the expenditures made under
the direction of the Navy Department were as follows :
April 1, 1865, to Dec. 31, 1863
Jan. 1, 1856, to June 30, 1866

Total, 15 months

It thus appars that the disbursements made under the
direction of the Army and Navy I/apartments during the
15 months immediately succeeding April 1, 1865, the
month in which the rebal armies surrendered, amounted to
9774,865,851.

But the liability .which existed at that date was even
more. There were the debts which humanity and honour
alike have imposed upon the country, and which Congress
has recognized and paid. We were then liable for pen-
sions, for the equalization of bounties, for further arrears
of pay of deceased soldiers, for the c:aims of States, for
the property of loyal men destroyed, for additional prize
money, for the reconstruction of the rebellious States, for
the care of the freedmen, and for the burial of the dead.
The amount of these liabilities which have been recog-
nized and paid, and which are not included in the previous
statement, is as follows :
Pensions
$62,828,955
Bounties
49,382,859
Prize money
Reimbursing States for war expendi-
tures
12,330,188
Claims of loyal men
Freedmen's B , ,

ureau ........................ 5,617000
Miscellaneous, including all expenses ,
of Reconstruction and National
Cemeteries, estimated .................. 3,000,000

Add expenses of the army and navy for $145,912,401
fifteen months ....... ............ 774,865,851.

Total
$920,778,252
And in this total is the sum to bo added to
the debt as it stood upon the books of the
Treasury April 1, 1865 ...... .

---
Making the aggregate of

which was the actual maximum of the war debt, being the
expenses of the war not paid as they were incurred.
These figures are all official, carefully prepared by the
Hon. David A. Wells.
•
At the end of the fiscal year ending June
30, 1868, the debt was ........................ $2,511,000,000
But in this amount there were included
$26,000,000 of bonds loaned to the Paci- •
fic Railroad, and to be paid by them...... 26,000,000

Net debt .................. $2,485,000,000

The Present debt, therefore, deducted from the maxi-
mum debt in 1865, proves the actual payment during three
years of quasi peace of $802,733,329, or about one-quarter
of the entire war liability.

The Alaska purchase, advance to Pacific Rail-
road, reduction of whisky tax, have for the present
slightly increased the debt. These figures show to
what purpose the revenue of the past three years
has been applied, and the balance can be struck as
as follows :

Income 3k years
War debt ... . $1,540,058,583
War interesi.Wd ................. 430,414,883
1,241,218,212

Ordinary expenses 5298,810,371
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, have 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 8920,778,252, which existed
April 1, andd tf which thera was still un-

settled on tile Ist of August the sum 0f... 530,013,758

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

within three years, and most of it was
due and paid within one year $530,013,758
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 n ar,
and due in 1867 and 1868

Total debt due 'within threo years 51,825,201,473
Due Debt on Demand.
Notes known as legal-tender notes, or
" greenbacks," which the Republican
party now recognizes as a debt due on
demand, and has paid in part, or pro-
poses to pay, or to fund in interest-bear-
ing bonds 6433,160,560
Fractional currency

$459,505,311
Less cash in the Treasury 88,218,055 $371,287 25
Funded Debt.
Old Five per Cents. duo in
1871 and 1874
5 per Cent. 10-40 Bonds duo
in 1904 172,770,100
6 per Cent. Bonds due in
1880 and 1881
6 per Cent. 5-20 Bonds due

in 1882 and 1881
Bonds issued to the Pacific
Railroad, duo 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 availing ourselves of the privi-
lege of real payment, and has kept oar 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 expons_‘s 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 40,000,000
The expenses for the Navy Department for
the year ending June 30, 1865, were 123,000,000
Year ending June 30, 1838
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. lie 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 noriaal 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
News asserts will prove sufficient to drive all im-
ported rice out of the home market during the
coining year. Fourth, 50,000 to 100,000 tierces 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 his a saleable surplus of the
aggregate value of $400,000,000 to $500,000,000,
and all this liith their harvest of fool is, if we cau
trust the evidence of their Dcmoc,Tatic 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?

" 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 iu the next 20 years mare than pal
the entire cost of the war by which slavery No
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 is
repudiating the debt."