The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1865-06-24
PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
The War Debt OF the d. States.

POlIS IN the 1reSlaentl1l election. are attack
ing afresh the credit Of the Government
They do this partly on the general accoun
OF an Unappeasable hate principally in thc
interest OF that semi-rebel traffic IN gold
which seeks TO sustain the rebellion by IN
creasing the expenses OF the war, by putting
greenbacks down and putting gold up, and
lifting up TO It's forced level the prices Of al
commodities necessary TO soldiers and In do.
mestic use by civilians.
II the unpatriotic ~malignants who call the
issue Of the 1870 loan ga swelling of the
volume of the currency who declare that
Z" If we do not conquer the South within the
next six months, our finances viii break
down and all our immense sacrifices prove
unavailing at last who say that if we do
not scatter Gen. Lees army in the spring
and early summer months, there Is danger
that we may pass from the p%erilous brink of
bankruptcy into It's yawning depths who
declare that in our finances we are . rapidly
nearing the vortex of the terrible whirlpool Z"
who say that, q" after an abortive spring
campaign, the Government could no longer
negotiate loans If these men were we'll
meaning and honest, instead of being studi-
ously unpatriotic, their presages of evil
would not be entitled to any consideration
They would be but the devisees of an eco
nomical blunder and a financial terror, which
shook England half a century ago, and
which a half a century OF British aggran-
Element in wealth and power has wondered
over and laughed at. The history Of the
protracted struggle OF Great Britain against
Bonaparte is full of the fears of her best
economists, that her war expenditure would
terminate in irretrieyable bankruptcy and in
the utter destruction of the nation. Adam
Smith was among them, and the historian
Hume, and DR.. Price, the author of PITTS
Sinking Fund System. Indeed, between
fifty and a hundred writers of note, states
men, historians, s~tatists, editors, pamphlet
GERS, bankers and scholars gave earnest ut
terance TO their alarm, and contributed to the
common sentiment that the War debt Of
England had ruined her, or was running her,
or would ruin her. Lord Macaulay, who, as
DT. Elder says, knew the domestic history
Of England from the gloomy month of No
vember to the merriest day of May of every
year throughout the period of her great
struggle with the Republic and the Empire
OF France, even TO the mInUtest scraps of
newspaper gossip" thus sums up his picture
OF these financial terrors, and Of their entire
needlessness
At every stage in the growth of .that
debt, 1t has been seriously asserted by wise
men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand.
At every stage of the growth Of that debt the
nation has set up the same cry of anguish
and despair. Yet still the debt went on
growing, and still bankruptcy and ruin were
as remote as ever"
Making special mention of the Debt at the
time 1t reached the highest point, he says
1t was, In truth, a gigantic, a fabulous
debt and we can hardly wonder that the cry
OF despair should have been louder than ever.
But again the cry was found TO have been as
unreasonable as ever. She beggared, the
bankrupt society not only proved able to meet
all Its obligations, but while meeting them
grew richer and richer so fast that the growth
could almost be discerned by the eye"
What is the error honest alarmists among
us have fallen into? The same that the
fell into. Macaulay exposed it
thus
They enormously imagined that there
an exact analogy between the case of an
individual who is IN debt to another indi-
vidual, and the case of society which is in
debt to a part OF itself. They were under
an error not less serious, touching the re-
sources Of the country. They made no al
for the effect produced by The inces-
SAINT progress of every experimental science,
md by the incessant efforts of every man to
ret on in life. They saw that the debt
and they forgot that other things grew
as well as the debt"
If economists of the school of Adam
Smith do forget these manifest truths, the
do not. See with what appreciation
IF the present, and confidence in the future,
hey pour their savings into the Seyen-Thirty
oan.
But let US not be understood, in thus ami
nadverting upon the motives of those who
would cripple the Government by exciting the
of the people, as the advocates of a
public debt without limit. While we urge
he people to aid the Government with all
ne requisite means to carry on an exhaust
We war, we at the same time insist upon the
most rigid economy on the part of the Gov
While it relies upon its credit
nd the patriotism Of the people, it must not
that a dollar saved is n dollar earned
nations as we'll as with men. 1t GAN
ot be too economical; and if II wants 10
reserve public confidence it must show that
deserves it, by avoiding all unnecessary
expenditures, and shutting off the streams of
xtravagance and waste which, in some quar-
Prs, are allowed to flow unchecked. The
eople are ready TO give II money every loan
has asked for has been promptly and gen.
rously responded to. That which it is now
,eking to obtain will be all the more easily
If il is made manifest that the Govern
lent means TO save money as well as borrow
/, and that it VIII never borrow more than IS
Dsolutely necessary.-[N. Y. Tribune.
THE DRFRoI.F GoSSIP.I nave known
country society which withered away all =
nothing under the dry rot of gossip only. '
riendships once as firm as granite dissolved