The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1866-01-26
From tie Baltimore Gazette.
The Finances of MARYLAND.

The Finances of Maryland.
! The Annual Report of the Comptroller
of the Treasury is not, by any means, a
document from which the people of Mary
land will derive much consolation. 1t in.
! dcates, even more from what it fails to
avow than irom.what it acknowed that
the finances of the State are in deplora-
bic condition and that concessions Of an
unusual character must DO made to capt.
talists to induce them to invest in her
bonds Let US explain. Under tho
Bounty act the Treasurer Of the State was
authorized to issue bonds to an amount
not exceeding four millions. He put out
proposals, i'll the first instance, for half
that sum-two milliops--but, AS the
Comptroller tells us, "bids only TO a
small amount were made, and at such
rates as were not deemed acceptable"
The bonds were then withdrawn from tie
market, and to save the credit of the State
from being dishonored, IA loan of some
eight hundred and thirty thousand dol
lars, payable in nine months from juno
last, was obtained from the banks. That
loan falls due in about sixty days and has
to be met at maturity. The Indebtedness
thus incurred, -gether with floating La
bilities, amounting, in reality, to an indefi-
mite sum, but set down roughly at eight
hundred thousand dollars more, can only
be liquidaied by dispoSing of some of the
best stocks and bonds owned by the State
to the extent Of nearly million of dol
lars, and by efectiug a sale of the bounty
bonds updGr the extra inducement of ex-
empting them from State, county and mu-
nicipal taxation. So far as we know,
Maryland is the only State in the Union
whose credit has been so damaged by
gross mismanagement of her finances as TO
be under the necessity of resorting TO the
exemption of her bonds from taxation as
means Of selling Thorn in the market -
notwithstanding the fact of the large in
vestments in seven-thirties--which is the
reason assigned for the neglect of our
State bounty bonds when proposals for
bids were issued some seven months ago
massachusetts managed to sell her five
per cent. bonds at niuety-fve, and the
other States DO not appear to have expe-
rienccd any difficulty in negotiating their
war loans also on satisfactory terms. Yet
ell Of them were, of course, subjected to
the same influences wnich operated, it is
alleged, to eilectually prevent the sale Of
the bounty bonds of this State.
There cannot, We think, be any doubt
that an act such as Governor Swami calls
for--cxempting those bonds from taxa
tion-would be most pernicious in its ef-
fects. The relief thus afforded to tho
capitalists would have to be met by im-
posing, to tho same extent, additional
taxes upon the bulk of the people of the
State, and upon those, too, who are least,
able to bear the burthen. 10 tax the
poor and let the rich 60 free, is a species
of class legislation and, being foreign to
the genius OF our institutions, could only
be productive of evil consequences. That
the bonds so favored would bring high
er price IN the market is quite probable;
but it would be better for the future vel.
fare of the State that they should be sold
at a lower rate, and should be left subject
to the same rule Of taxation to which every
other kind of property is liable, than that
distinction should thus be drawn be-
tween two classes of society, by which one
OF them is accorded special privileges at
the expense of the other and the weaker
of the two. Yet this is what Governor
Swami cuolly proposes shall be done.
When the war first commenced, there
was no State in the Union whose financial
condition was more fourisbing than that
of Maryland. Her treasury was we'll sup
piled, and through the annual Increase of
her sinking fund it was confidently asser-
ted that the whole amount of her public
debt would be paid off at comparatively
early day. -Four years have passed sincs
then four years of reckless legislation.--
The credit Of the State is ut the lowest
point some Of the securities which she
held have already been alienated ; and,
others from which she has drawn large
annual interest, 10 the great relief of the
tax payers, IT Is now proposed shall also be
sold 10 provide for the anticipated def
cit In tho treasury the Comptroller recon-
mendS the sale of the Baltimore city and
bank stocks held by the State; the
wharves owned by her; the State tobacco
the York and Cumberland
Railroad bouds guaranteed by the city of
and even the ten thousand dol