The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1864-07-09
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
The Taxable Property Of the
United States.

It is sometimes fippantIy said that the Treas
ury notes and bonds represent nothing but the
mere promise to pay of the government. As the
government, however, Is a mere nom
mated by, and the agent of, the people, the
promise To pay of the government carries with 1t
the promise TO pay of the people, just as the note
OF the treasurer of a corporation binds the prop
erty Of the company he represents. A debt IS
good or bad according to the relation 1t bears 20
the productive property of the person who issues
iL, and, in regard to IL nation, productive proper
ty Is generally synonymous with taxable proper
ty. In 1850 the taxable property of the United
States was about seven thousand one hundred
millions of dollars in 1860 by the application of
capital and labor to the undeUeIoped wealth of the
Country, &c had increased to over sixteen thousand
one hundred millions, OF more than l26 per cent.
In ten years. As the undeveloped wealth of the
country is practically immeasurable, and as new
inventions in the arts, in combination with CAPT
tai and skilled labor, will enormously increase
the rapidity with which it is converted into pro-
ductive wealth, it is not unfair to suppose that
this rate of interest, 126 per cent, is applicable
to the four decades succeeding 1860.
If this be admitted, the taxable property of
the country will, in 1870, be over thirty-six
thousand five hundred millions of dollars, about
the present taxable property of Great Britain
In 1880, over eighty-two thousand. eight hundred
millions in 1890, one hundred and eightyseven
thousand, three hundred millions {; in 1900, when
our ten-fOrty loan approaches its time of payment,
four hundred and twenty-three thousand three
hundred millions. These sums are enormous,
and make our prospective debt Of three thousand
millions of little more relative Importance than
the score at a BARRIERS shop to the purse of a
millionaire.
Mr.. r. j. Walker has taken up these figures
IN the last number of the Continental Monthly.
We commend his article to our readers,-to the
hopeful portion of them that they may have
more hope, to the despairing that they
may see their dependency placed in the most
of all lights. The increase Of popula-
ton, if we follow the rate at which it has pre-
viousiy advanced, will correspond with the
increase of wealth. In 1900 our one hundred
millions of people will own the four hundred and
twenty-three thousand millions of taxable pro-
perty.
If our whole country should eventually be as
densely settled as Massachusetts is now, it will
FIVE hundred millions of inhabitants if
as densely settled as England is now, it will con-
tain twelve hundred millions. England is a
country which has nearly approached the limit
ut which it can develop wealth from its own
Its coal mines. for instance, will be
IN 300 years, while our undeyeloped
coal mines are very much greater, in square
miles, than the whole area of the British Isles.
the $3.50, 900 square miles included in
the territory of the United States contain meal
culable wealth, which we have but just begun
TO develop. Massachusetts,, with an area of only
1900 square miles of the poorest land in the
country, owns one-seventeenth of the whole tax
able property of the nation. If the taxable
property of each of the States was as large in
proportion to its area in square miles as that of
Massachusetts,, the country would now have a
taxable property of over four hundred and fifteen
millions of dollars. A young nation
With such infinite means and material for Great
ing wealth as these figures indicate, will not be
by a debt of three thousand millions
of dollars.-Bosfon Transcript.