The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-19
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Revenue, Currency, and tho DCbt-What
Congress should DO aud NOT Do'
rom The ~. T. Herald
The several Committees Of both Houses Oh
congress on Ways and Means, Finance Cur
ency and Banking, the Revenue, and oognate
,ubieots relating TO our national finances, are
busily at work, with a view to regulate the
present disordered and oppressive state of
things. They have a great deal to perform to
accomplish this, but It is, in great measure,
labor of a negative character, to undo and
straighten out the crude, entangled and COM
plicated works done heretofore by Congress
and an incompetent Secretary of the Treasury.
First, the revenue system, or rather want Of
system, should be thoroughly overhauled and
organized. At present it is in great disorder,
very oppressive, ruinously expensive, and full
of corruption. 1t is hardly possible to find in
the history of nations any revenue system so
demoralizing both to the people and Govern
ment. In time of peace, and nearly three
4 years after the war closed, we raise a revenue
a of over six hundred millions of dollars-that is,
reckoning the gold receipts from customs in
= lawful money as we'll as the internal revenue.
No people in the world are so heavily taxed.
Il Yet seven years ago sixty to seventy millions
year were sufficient to carry on the Govern
ment, and even that amount was considered
e extravagant. In seven years we have in
creased the revenue and burdens of the people
= nine fold. We should have thought this
+ Incredible seven years ago, and 1t is
& frig htful to contemplate now. 1t is war
revenue nearly three years after peace was
established-a revenue such as the richest and
greatest empires would hardly venture to raise
in time of war. Every one knows this stupen-
dous amount is not necessary, even with the
hundred and thirty to forty millions year re-
quired to pay the interest on the debt. With
economy in legislation and in the management
of the Treasury Department, half the present
revenue should be ample. If we calculate the de-
crease of expenditure in collecting a revenue
diminished by half under efficient manage
ment, the taxes would be reduced in greater
proportion. Nearly two-thirds of our present
burden probably might be taken off with
safety. But this is not all. The Government
loses or is cheated out of something like a
hundred and fifty millions year by whisky
and other frauds, as the evidence has shown.
Never was known before such loose, extra
VACANT, and complicated revenue system.
One of the first things Congress should do is
to reduce taxation, to raise an income from
fewer articles and sources, and that chiefly
from luxuries, and to simplify the whole ma
chinery of collection and management of this
department.
Then the entire debt should be consolidated
and bear five per cent. interest. We have now
number and variety of forms of indebted
ness, making great confusion and creating all
sorts of stock gambling in and out of the
Treasury Department. Secretary McCulloch' 8
policy has been as much the delight of gold
and stock gamblers as disastrous to the coun-
try. The various forms of debt might be con
Verted into one of five per cent. consols. This
conversion to uniformity, with reduced in
terest, might be made without loss if the deb
would not prevent the Government from esta
bishing sinking fund, or Of buying up the
debt from year to year with funds provided foI
that purpose. Indeed, the debt might be made
payable fifty years hence, and yet all of it ex-
tinguished before maturity. Let us, then,
have uniform consolidated debt at lower
interest, and at the same time sinking fund
for its liquidation within as short time as
may be practicable. But the first step should
be to pay off at once five hundred millions or
so of the interest bearing bonds by an issue
of legal-tenders in place of the national bank
notes, and by the surplus money in the Trea-
sury. The interest bearing debt might be re-
duced to fifteen or sixteen hundred millions
within a year, and this at five per cent
would require only seventy-fve to eighty mil
lions year to be raised for paying the interes
on the whole debt.
With regard to the currency, nothing should
be done except to make it uniform through
withdrawing the national bank circulation
and issuing greenbacks in place of that
There should be no further contraction. Tht
country has settled down to the presen
amount of circulation, and all values anC
transactions in business are based upon it. II
contract would be most disastrous, as we hav
experienced lately, and would dry up tn
source Of industry and the revenue of tn
Government. The increasing population an,
active industry of the country will absorb al
the currency so that it will become, year afte
year, less abundant and more stringent rela
lively. In this way we shall grow up gradu
ally to specie payments without any seriou
Eevulsion. These are the highly importan
subjects Congress should attend to during tn
present session and before the excitement Q
the Presidential election commences. The
can not be postponed without serious injury
Simple, plain measures, such as oommO
sense will dictate, are all that is necessary
place the national finances on a safe and stabl
foundation.
General Grant and the Presidency.
bfon the ~ Y. Times.
Wa ara not sur,,r;oad fo find hat ba paoaV