The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-06-23
The Public Finances.
From tie Times.

from Ue ItLReS.
Some OF our critical and ever-growling neigh
bors can find no good in the administration of
the finances. They are far from being consistent
with each other. A score of funding and con-
tracing crotchets are indulged, as widely differ
ing theoretically from each other as their
authors profess to differ from Mr.. McCulloch
practically. And IL would be quite as difficult
for the Secretary to attempt to please any one
of these authorities without offending all others
as to undertake to reconcile the contradictory
views OF, or to make his peace with the whole
party.
We shall have to advise him, therefore to
preserve his accustomed equaDimity. We have
little question that he will do so. He will con-
tinue to pursue his steady course Of payment
and Improvement OF the public debt In this
good work and its results ne has the approval,
as he merits the confidence, of the whole
country. The clamor and gratuIous couEsels
with which he has been visited of late, from
certain newspaper quarters, have been directed
and as before intimated without the slightest
show of consistency or unanimity; 10 the conduct
OF the currency and the funding of the pubic
debt.
!. Let us see what he has actually accom-
pllshed since last summer in regard to his duty
to the currency
Greenbacks July 81. 1855. June 1866
Free OF interest .s4SS @ 16C @ 569 S4O2 12S SlS
FIVE per cents. ...."..... 81 ,954,290 Nil
Compounds. s........."... 2l2,l26,47O l620l2, 140
Total outstanding. .s685 24i 269 s56lI4O ASS
Reduction of all Greenbacks. Sl2l loo, 81
Last summer all descriptions of this paper
were in Tree and full circulation as currency.
The Oldest dates OF the compounds commanded
no premium. The newest were passed from
| hand to hand and bank to bank in larger sums
| than the original greenbacks. And a month or
! six weeks later II was found needful, in the
prompt payment Of our Notwithstanding
armies to partially increase, in place of curtail
ing, this particular description of currency. We
| take the 3lst OF July, however, as the maximum
| OF all descriptions. And if 20 the above sum OF
! reduction since Of Sl2l, ,l00,9ll we should add
| the $l62 OH, ,l40 of compounds not yet abso
| lutely withdrawn, but which have long ceased
| to be currency in the popular sense, and
| now command lOl@l0l3 and the full accu.
| mulated compound interest, as an inUest
| ment, the practical reduction of the cur
| rency of United States Treasury notes of $685.
ll2, 2,95l, as against an increase OF the currency
| OF National Bank notes, bearing the same com.
| mon seal OF security from the Treasury, is only
| Sill, ,585, 220. A further reduction of United
| States Treasury notes common greenbacks)
| will soon appear on the public debt statement,
| 10 bring down the total greenbaCk circulation
| to $3.50, ,000,0 900, below which il cannot be re-
| duced, under the late act OF Congress, until six
| months alter the date OF the act (April, 1861,
when the uniform scale Of S4,0OO000 reduction
/ per month will be within the discretion OF the
| Secretary. And we may here add that when
| the act was passed. the greenback circulation
including the reserves for the payment of de
| pOslls-btOOu P4A15 1OA. Inc secretary mas
since withdrawn nearly or quite the entire ex
cess over the original S40O 600 000 and will have
reduced the latter $l0,OOO,0OO, has auth orized in
all Sr, really in less than three months from
| the date OF she act.
q The public debt outstanding and not pro-
| vided for last summer, July 81, amounted to
| 81, ,757, 253,276. On August 81 the total was
| almost dentcally the same, S2,757, ,78l, l90
From this date began the good work of funding
| and the better work OF paying off the public
| obligations. The war expenses were by no means
at an end The settlements continued more or
| less oppressive to the current revenues of the
Treasury to the lst June inst. Nor are they over
| vet But in the intervening nine or ten mouths
| the Secretary has not only met ON the instant
| the whole OF these new requsitons as they APP
peared from the War and Navy Departments,