New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1864-06-13

national debt is a positive necessity, which we
must accept with all the grace possible; but it
will be well for us all to remember that debt is
not wealth, and that in our present position the
national bank notes represent debt and not
property at all. OF course, no man can honestly
doubt their final redemption to the. last dollar;
and they would be worth no more than so many
shop-bills if any considerable number Of men
did really believe that their apparent is very
much less than their actual future value. But,
at the same time, the present effect Of enormous
paper issues is to make money cheap and com
mon, and in this glut Of circulating medium
the ratio of values is strictly preserved; and no
matter how much we may be able to buy, we
still pay in proportion to tho ease with which
our money was acquired. Hence, it is plain to
see that with the first great change in na-
tional, must come a great change in domestic
affairs. When we actually fall down from the
heaven of apparent wealth to the hard and dis
tasteful business of paying our debts and our
taxes, great many people who thought them
selves rich will find out their mistake, and
discover that they are not the owners of the
splendid real and personal estates which stand
in their names. 1t is not well at any time,
or for those even who are soldly rich, to acquire
habits of profuse and reckless expenditure; but
it is still worse for those who must sooner or
later, be driven, by reverses of fortune, to the
most rigid economy, to educate themselves to
love of splendor and expense. Many may in
this way be permanently soured in character,
and their lives forever saddened by artificial
wants to which good luck will afford no second
supply. A man who has become suddenly rich
without any compromising labor, when he again
returns to his poverty, is in worse plight than
ever; for he has outgrown the simple tastes and
the modest pretensions Of his low estate, and
then for the first time feels il as really intolcr
able evil.
There is one feature of war which is rarely
remembered until the tax-gatherer comes to the
door, and that is, its positive, actual waste.
lts immense material expenditure, only in rare
eases, makes any tangible material return.
Every campaign literally takes SO much wealth
out of the world. 1t is no more here than if 1t
had never existed 1t can only be replaced by
the steady and, for many years, uninterrupted
labors of peace. When national treasury has
been emptied it can only be filled again by
actual taxaton; and taxes represent, not the
light and easy specuations of the money mar
ket, but downright bodily toll, and pinching
economy, and painful self-donial. The people
of the United States owe already great deal
of money. Fortunately, the debt has been in
CURED at homo, and thus far is pretty equally
dsiributed but the time may come when the
creditors ofthe Government in the main will be
few extremely wealthy capitalists. The taxes
of such, however numerically large are
not burdens grievous To be borne. Men OF
millions, however great their taxes may be,
easily discharge them. II is upon persons Of
moderate means that taxation presses most
heayily-is felt i'll the diminuton Of home com.
forts and the loss Of domestic serenity. When
the great hclr Of our financial trial comes,
after the storms Of war have happily subsidized. In
the painful struggles Of the nation toward It's
old plenty and prosperity, they will be least
prepared to take their part in the work Of reou.
peration who have acquired tastes which only
enormous wealth can crafty and have found
the means Of qualification slipping away from
tlem like fairy gold. Upon the whole, in this
working world, no money is worth much 10 lis
possessor which has not been fairly and honest
ly earned, nor is it likely TO remain long III
hands which have not really toiled for its accu-
1t may be very hard for many, who
fancied themselves the possessors of the phlloso-
piers stone, to find their fine houses melting
into thin air; but those will be the least for
tunate whose capacity for labor has been i'm
paired by momcntary good fortune, and who
have forgotten, in the brilliant dreams OF a
single year, the secret Of a true and rational
happiness.