Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-06-16
Public Debts-Austria and the United
States.

Our neighbor Of the Enquirer is careful and
troubled about the financial condition Of
Austria. He sets forth in formidable array
of figures, the sums Of annual deficits ac-
cruing successfully, and winds up with
gloomy picture of State which has parted
with her public lands, works, and all other
things ola material character and is still no
better financially than huge array Of COM
plicated and hopeless bankruptcies.
The central fact in the case of Austria is
simply this that the government expends
annually more than it can collect by way of
revenue. All governments that do this will
ultimately arrive at a condition equivalent
to that which Austria has reached. Each
deficit, as it is humorously called: that is to
say, each season when more is squandered
than can be squeezed from the people, de-
mands financial expedient to make up the
difference. Each successive expedient be-
comes more desperate than any Of its prede-
cessors. The industrial interests of the peo-
pie are, one after another, sacrificed to COM
pensate the money class for its services in
preserving delusive appearance of solvency.
Things grow annually worse and worse, until
a result arrives of which the condition of
Austria is a fair average exemplication.
The disease Of spending more than it can
collect is not confined to the House of Haps-
burg. Our Government spends more than it
can collect. We are, in one respect, worse
off than Austria; for while they have one, we
have several governments, one within an
other, all of which spend more than they can
collect. To the National Government expe-
dients have become a current financial re-
source; to the State government they are
equally so; in our case we have both county
and city debts which are annually on the in
crease, demanding from time to time resort
to extraordinary financial devices to meet
accruing obligations. These governments in
respect to the creation of debts, are no check
upon each other; but on the contrary, there
would seem TO be strife as to which should
borrow the most money and eIpend It to the
least purpose.
Congress meets to appropriate: Party
strife is forgotten amid combinations to n-
crease the expenditure; and this in the face
of the fact that upon the basis of no known
data can the accruing revenues be figured up
equal to the demand which is thus created.
State, County and City Legislatures find bills
of appropriation the most interesting subject
that falls within their line of duty Our ex-
pedients are not yet quite as desperate as
those of Austria; but all that will come in
time, and the tears which we shed over the
misfortunes of that nation may very properly |
be reserved for ourselves.
The correlative of public debt is revolu- |
tionary repudiation; and to this, sooner or
later, things must come. In Austria, its i'm |
minency is easily perceptible. This huge |
aggregate of obligation must be wiped out.
it can not by any possibility be paid. The
act of reputation may overthrow the Gov
ernment, cast the posterity of Rudolph from |
the throne, sever the Empire into its original |
fragments and render necessary a new set
tlement of Europe" Under our popular |
forms the matter will be more easily managed, |
and with less danger to existing Institutions.
A party founded upon the idea that no one
generation Of men has the rightful power to
bind another in respect to pecuniary obliga-
tions, and legislatures elected upon the issue
thereby established, will do all the necessary
work, and, at the same time, at the expense,
perhaps, of some odium, give practical force
TO one of the most important principles of
government.