New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-08-10
THE sTNE.ys or WAR.

The receipts from customs at the port of New
York for the last quarter were five millions and
half of dollars. The receipts at other ports were
little or nothing. At this rate the annual receipts
would be twenty-five millions, while ordinarily
they foot up fifty or sixty millions. The expendi-
lures are OF the rate Of six hundred millions of dol
lars year, so that they amount to about thirty
times the income. How old Abe expects both
ends to meet, under these circumstances, is some
thing yet to be explained. Everybody recollects
Mr.. Micawbers little bit Of financial philosophy:
g Annual income, Copperfeld, twenty pounds
annual expenditure, twenty, nought, six. Result,
misery. Annual income, twenty pounds-annual
expenditure nineteen, nineteen, six. Result, hap
piness." Testing Old Abe's condition by this, we
should think his load of misery at the end of the
year would be none of the lightest.
Even this little driblet of twenty-five millions is
not realized in cash. Treasury notes were made
available for the payment of duties, and as they
can be bought for less than par, the consequence
is all duties are paid with them. The merchant
who owes thousand dollars for duties will not
pay the thousand dollars in gold when he can go
into Wall street and buy for nine hundred and fifty
dollars thousand dollars worth of Treasury notes,
good for thousand dollars at the Custom House.
Thus the Government receives, instead of money,
its own promises to pay. So hard up, indeed, has
it become for little ready cash. it has been dodg
ing around among the banks of New York, Phia-
delphia and Boston, begging for couple of mil
lions or SO, "just to keep the taste in its mouth"
and giving in exchange therefor its l. 0. U. at
| sixty days.
| How it will be when they 60 into market for the
five hundred millions required by old Abe to carry
him through the year, we do not yet know. Abe is
| somewhat in the condition Of the young spend
| thrifts of England who borrow money on post
| obits agreeing to pay heavy interest, on condi-
ton that the usurer is to be paid back when some
rich old uncle dies. Abe borrows on post-obt,
and the South is the rich old uncle. He is to pay
when the South is politically no more, and the
North gets possession of her cotton, her tobacco,
her rice, her hemp, her sugar, and all her other
valuable possessions. There is, however this
hitch in the arrangement, that the North has not
the entail as it thinks it has-and the money-lend
ers will very likely look at the subject in this light
before they advance the "sponduli7.'
AS if conscious that the chances were rather
slim on this side Of the water, an agent has been
sent to Europe to raise the wind over there. Mr..
Auguste Belmont has started across, with authority
to borrow one hundred millions-and by way
Of inducement to capitalists to come down with
the cash. is instructed TO offer seven per centum
per annum. As money, in various countries of
Europe, is worth only three or four per cent, it is
thought Belmont would have no trouble in getting
tire loan taken, and would soon come back with
his pockets weighed down with foreign gold. But,
unfortunately for Abraham, the news of his rout
at Manassas goes across at Belmont's heels. That
eminent fnancier will scarcely get his first dinner
abroad before all Europe viii ring with the news
OF our splendid Southern victory. Even had there
been no such victory, the shrewd capitalists of
Europe would have considered that it must be
rebellion of some importance that reqaired four
hundred thousand men and five hundred millions
of dollars to e crush utf-and it is likely. would
have been suspicious of loan to a Government
Offering so high rate of interest. Recollectnr
that the same Government, few years ago, was
so flush OF money that it paid sixteen per cent.
premium for its bonds before they were due, the
fall in its credit, which compels it to now hawk
its bonds all over the world at seven per cent.
interest," will not escape their notice. And then,
when, by reason of the victory at Manassas it
becomes evident that the postobit is worthless on
account OF the failure of the entail Mr.. Belmont
may get his hundred millions, but we think we see
him doing it.
Willing as the people of the North are, to be
involved in debt which would forever weigh
them down, the prospect is they will be saved
from their own folly simply because their credit,
as nation, is about to be utterly destroyed.