Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-01-22
The WAR DEBT.

which secessionism has been fendishly men
acing everything worth preservation in North
America, the hitherto unavailing efforts of the
immense volunteer army and navy which have
so courageously rallied in defense of the Union,
the deadening weight of our great calamity
expressing the hopes of good men who any
where try to keep alive their faith in Chris
tianity and free institutions, have rendered
the sixty-first year Of this nineteenth century
sadly memorable forever. That marvellous
tragic poem petrfed-the LAGOON group of
the Vatican Museum-whatever its unknown
sculptor intended the marble monument OF his
amazing genius should represent typihes
nothing more impressively than the ideal
Uncle Sam, writhing with pain, and striving
frantically to extricae himself from the huge
serpentcoils of the slave power and civil war.
When and from what quarter the blessed
dawn of peace shall smile upon us again, is
question which meets no response other than
its WIN indistinct echoes but there is need
of no prophets vision TO foresee that for the
north to recede discouraged from her present
attitude would be to retrograde into the yawn-
ing gulf Of utter ruin.
Only one course now remains the federal
government MUST conquer an honorable peace,
or die in the harness, with back to the field
and feet to the foe" Just at present the in
quiry OF pressing importance is how to raise
the enormous sums of money necessary to
defray the vast expenses of this war. "Who
dance must pay the fiddler says the old
proverb, and assuredly this fifty million dollars
a month is, to use slang phrase, piling up
the cat-gut bill pretty steep Now, whatever
else Jonathan may feel the immediate necessi-
ty OF learning he knows very well that the
grammar OF debt paying has but three lenses,
the present, the future definite, and the future
indeiuite-which latter may be defined as
that in which John Bull is already doomed to
write all has promises to pay, henceiorh and
forever!
The immediate cash payment of the war
debt, as last as it is incurred, even were such
promptness practicable, would be a manifest
injustice, since whatever good may be attain
ed OF evil prevented by the war, generations
to come more than that now on the stage will
reap the chief benefits of it, and ought, with
out urmurng, to take upon their shoulders
their proper share of It's burdens
a perpetual debt is the other extreme of
financial policy. To this sad scheme-the
bitter fruit of many an unrighteous war-dire
necessity has finally reduced the British ma
ton, which now in its old age totters beneath
the crushing load OF loan heaped upon loan,
till the inconceivabe sum of Jive thousand mil
lion dollars would hardly discharge the accum-
ulated liabilities With a free population
scarcely equaling that of the united kingdom,
with the appalling prospect of being obliged TO
pay six or eight per cent. interest on loans
where the British government pays only
three per cent, and with our eyes open 10 the
wretched condition of the poor in all countries
where an immense national debt inflicts ex-
cessive taxation upon the people, shall we imi-
tate the bad example Of England Shall we
mock ourselves with the deluson that per
manent national debt will unite the hearts of
our people in a common bond to keep the
peace Let us see. The tendency OF gov
eminent loans is from the hands of the many
10 those of the few. There are but some IT,
600 holders Of the whole $4,000, 900 900 OF the
funded debt OF Great Britain. Now, nation.
al loan in the United States, arrived at this
stage, would inevitably either be repudated
by the people, or its high rate of interest low
cred either would be national disgrace.
Famines, earthquakes, and pestiences, may
operate as bonds OF union to their victims, and
such debt as that of England deserves al.
most to be put in the same category. Fore
warned by the experience of older nations, let
US beware. Intermnable debt is the broad
road which leads to national bankruptcy,
where another war like the Crimean would
likely enough shipwreck the British govern
ment since already the details of narrow es
capes from such catastrophe figure on more
than one page OF British history. Dare we
forget the warning record Of the past, that,
whenever nation goes down, be 1t beneath
the iron heel of a cOnqueror or beneath the
palsy OF broken credit, the sun of prosperity
never shines again? Let us not deceive our
selves. Among the causes threatening to re-
duce England to the condition of a second or
third rate power, none looms up more promi
nent and menacing than her monstrous debt
No rational man can hope that our govern
ment will get out of the present war for less
than thousand million dollars and this bur
den-should another war supervene, as is
probable enough-might perhaps be swollen
into that which is to-uay latent volcano be-
meath the British islands.
Loans for definite periods, them seem the
only ones for which the United States govern
ment ought to venture to pledge its credit.
Whatever debt the war entails upon US, the
mari of wisdom Is to provide for its certain pay.
ment and within such a period, at tarthest
that the children of those who see the end Of
the war may witness the extinction of all the
pecuniary obligations it may have left upon
our hands. Let the semiannual interest OF
the loan be promptly met, and hundred mil.
lions of the principal be paid off, say every
five years or oitener, until the blessed end of il
shall be reached. The customs, the proceeds
of the public lands, and confscation of rebels
property, will contribute much for this pur-
pose, and rigid, systematic scheme of heavy
taxation should supply the deficiency. Let us
submit TO anything-anything this side OF
ruin-rather than suffer the horrid vulture OF
perpetual debt to prey upon the vitals of this
country forever !