The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1864-08-20

lions Of dollars. There is q good deal O
manly sense in his circular Of July 25th
which is now probably in the bands Of al
most everybody and which will lead every
tnongntiul man to reflect on the sources
| WAenc0 government must derive the means
meet the vast expenditures growing on,
OF tne war. The stream cannot rise any
nlgnef than its source. The utmost ability
Oh i'lhe government to spend is exactly
measured by the ability Of the people to
pay and to lend. Taxes and loans are
Qrawn from the same reservoir; and the
secretary's circular invites to the inquiry
what the limits to this reservoir are. What
is the source whence the people pay their
taxes and make their loans to government?
And what constitutes the limit of their
ability to pay and to loan?
II the taxes are 50 heavy and the call for
loans 80 urgent a. to diminish in any one
year the active capital Of the country, that
derived, 1t Is clear that the ability Of the
people to pay taxes and make loans to gov
ernmeAt the next year is thereby lessened;
and If there is TO be = steady call year after
year, either to pay current expenses or in
terest on old debt, then certainly capital
should be left intact. for it is only from the
fertile bosom Of capital that the successive
crops Of governmental revenue are to be
reaped. Any capitalist may convert his
net profits, and all of them, into govern
ment stock, without thereby straitening
his ability to pay taxes and lend money
another year. But should he 20 further
than this, and draw from his active capital,
he weakens the industrial interests Of the
country, and makes himself and it less able
to bear heavy and continuous taxation
An artizan may safely put his gains into
the hands Of governments; but for him to
sell his tools and lessen his capital for the
sake OF taking stock is alike loss to him
and to the nation. A government may 60
on borrowing at home until all these prof
its Of business and gains of industry are
swept together and absorbed into its long
stock, but it cannot prudently go any fur
ther.. When these gains are all gathered
in, it must then go abroad to borrow, or
stop spending.
Il was a failacy ofsecretary Chase's, and
one that infected all his earlier financial
schemes, when he supposed that by max
ing money plenty among the people he
could thereby more easily borrow Of them
what the government needed. This no.
ton, which appears over and over again in
his reports, led him to look with less dis
favor than he would otherwise have shown
upon the expansion Of the currency. What
the government wanted, however, to carry
on the war with was not nominal dollars.
bits Of paper by courtesy 30 called, but
Chase found to his dismay that after larg-
" increasing the volume Of currency by
his legal tenders. he could borrow
no more easily than before. Just in
proportion to the imitation followed the de-
probation, and it took just so much more
money to do the business Of the country
as the dollar deprecated, and there was no
more left to be converted into long stock
than there was before.
And Mr.. Chase's supposition il shown to
be wholly wrong by the fact that while for
the past months the amount Of money in
circulation has been enormous, the money
market has been tight, at times stringent
ly so. Moreover, even If more nominal
dollars did in consequence Of their abund-
ance slop over from the currency into the
secretary's strong box, he found when he
purchase was gone just In proportion to
that abundance, and this disagreeable con-
sequence was found to be involved, that
while he was pledging the faith Of the ma
ton to repay these loans in value money
after twenty years, and in the meantime
the interest on them in gold, the loans
themselves when he came to use them had
lost q large part of their value quality
He borrowed thousand dollars and
pledged the faith Of the nation to repay it
In gold, but the thousand dollars when he
came to buy anything with it wasn't q
thousand dollars but something very con-
siderably less. The government has not
got, and does not get, an equivalent for
what It promises to give. This Is very un-
fortunate. And it is this which is heaping
up our national debt to such an alarming
hight. We and our children and children's
children shall be obliged to sweat to repay
up to their full face these loans on which
the government does not realize in actual
purchasing power any more than one-half
or one-third of their face.
There is no use in any longer blinking
the fact that the only genuine source Of
supply for national borrowing is the pro-
ceeds Of the labor and skill of the people,
and that portion of the, proceeds only
which remains after provision has been
made for carrying forward the regular
business of the country. All that frugality
can save from this surplus may go, and
ought to 60, into these popular loans. And
passable limit to further borrowing at
home, and at the same time the ability re-
mains to stand heavy and steady taxation.
this limit has not yet by any means been
reached. And when 1t Is reached, or even
before, there is no objection to borrowing
abroad. It is folly to borrow at home It
six per cent. II We can borrow abroad at
shSpld get : purchasing power to the full
facS Of the loan, whereas In the former, ct
q higher rate Of interest, we get only de-
preciated money in return for good ma
nOnal bond. .T..
But while the home call lasts, and there
ii o chance 70 invest on favorable terms in
. loan whose security is unquestionable,
let every. man come to the rescue Of the
government with his spare cash. Thepeo-
pie have got the money such - it is, and
the government needs it. And if money
makes the mare Sc it y ten times - true
diation Of the national debt with such re-
sources ~ this country has to back It is
morally impoesible to occur.-SprinOfeld
Republican. a
IA calculation has been made" says the
Salut Public Of Lyons, ION the subject Of
crinolines, which il worthy Of attention.-
Those dresses, In fact, require three metres
more material than the ordinary ones.y As
no, less than twenty millions of ladies'
dresses are made every year in France, the
additional quantity used is sixty millions
of metres, which, taken at the average
price Of two francs metre, makes sum Of
one hundred and twenty millions of francs.
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