Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-02-03
TO ADvERTIsERsi
THE TREASURY AND THE TARIFF RE.
VISION.

The powers that be, at Washington, are in
the saddest quandary imaginable, over the diff
fcult problem, of chow to make both ends
meet" or, in other words, as to the means to
save the National Treasury from bankruptcy.
Poor old Mr.. Buchanan seems to be in an es-
pecial bad fix, and while he implores Congress
to grant him the pretty little sum of thirty
million of dollars, with which to enter upon
negotiations for the purchase of Cuba, his par
ty are very much divided as to the manner of
raising a suficiency of "the root of all evil'
with which to liQuidate the debts already in
Cured.
At the Senate caucus, the other night, of the
Administration members, called especially to
consider this subject of increasing the revenue,
it was very decidedly resolved that no changes
or notifications of the existing tariff should be
entered upon at the present time, and it was
supposed that that decision was in the nature
of finality, SO far as the Senate was concern
ed But on Monday, Mr.. Bigler of Pennsyl-
vania, whose constituents have large interest
in any modification of the tariff which shall
raise the rates of duty upon those articles of
foreign import which are extensively produced
in that State, was determined not to let the
matter rest there; and, accordingly, on Mon
day, from his seat in the Senate, he appealed
directly from the caucus, to that body, with
the unanswerabe proposition, that, "as the
creation of large public debt, in time of
peace, is inconsistent with the true policy of
the United States, and the present revenues are
insufficient to meet the unavoidable expenses
of the Government, Congress should proceed,
,cithout delay, so to readjust the revenue laws
as not only to meet the deficit in the Govern
ment expenses, but to pay off the public debt,
SO far as it may be liable to immediate cancel
lation."
In the House upon the same day, when Mr..
Houston, of Alabama, disciple of the South
ern Free Trade school of politics, asked leave
to bring in a BILL authorizing the President to
borrow twenty million of dollars, Mr.. Covode,
of Pennsylvania, expressed a desire to know
chow and when the twenty million were to be
his State, would not consent to vote to borrow
money, until some measures were provided
for its repayment. He closed with the very
pointed and emphatic statement that the
Pennsylvanians were not going to suffer the
loan party, the free traders, to run the country
still deeper into debt, without first revising the
revenue laws, so as to increase the receipts of
the Treasury. In these views and sentiments
expressed by the Pennsylvania delegates, in
both House and Senate, it is understood that
Mr.. Buchanan concurs, and, as the House
has majority who would favor modification
of the tariff laws, under the present peculiar
state of the national finances, and has the
power, moreover, by its capacity to stop the
supplies, to compel the Senate to recede from
its position, as indicated in the caucus, it would
not be strange, if, after all, we should have, be-
fore the close of the session, some such bill
adopted, as would put stop to the tendency to
excessive importations of manufactured goods,
which already manifests itself to an almost I'M
precedented extent. Such law would give
an impetus to the wheels of enterprise, in all
the cities and towns of the manufacturing
States, and thus in short time, react, with
most beneficial results, upon the distressed and
broken down agricultural interests of the
West
The time is short from now to the day on
which the term of the present Congress ex
pires; but the exigencies of the Treasury will
all the more demand corresponding activity
on the part of those who are opposed to the
running-in-debt policy of conducting the Gov
eminent in time of peace and we may still
continue to hope that the returning period of
business prosperity, which already begins to
dawn upon the country, after the severe finan-
cial revulsion of last year, may receive no Sc
we're shock or sudden overthrow, through the
bitter hostility of that class of politicians at
Washington, who would submit to almost any
deprivation except the loss of their own sala-
ries, if it would subserve their desires to ex-
tend the domain of slavery and cripple the in
! dustrial enterprises of the free States.