The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-17
Our Financial Prospects.

"A'AA '" - I...t.I.r..f q ...H.f
Our Financial Prospects. t1p 5r
From, the Times. aa3 NiBd draneJ yd torn I
We hear from Washington that the Secre-
tary of the Treasury expresses the opinion
very freely, that no further reduction of the
public debt need be expected at present; in
deed, the chances are that the debt will be
increased within the next three months.
We fear we are approaching the end of the
agreeable delusions we have been nursing in
regard to our debt and taxes. So much has
been said of the exhaustless resources of our
country-our people have submitted so grace
fully to the taxes imposed upon them and the
actual reduction of the debt from month to
month has been so considerable, that we
began to look upon the whole thing as baga-
telle. 1t has been assumed that the debt was
to be paid within twenty or thirty years at
furthest, and that, too without special effort
or special hardships in any quarter. ALI this
was possible only while business in every de-
partment was iourishing-while labor was
abundant and well rewarded; while everybody
was getting rich, and could afford to pay
heavy taxes.
All this begins already to be reversed. The
tide is turning. Business is dull-prices are
so exorbitant that labor, which commands
enormous wages, can scarcely earn living
the profits of all branches of industry have
fallen of, and everybody begins to feel COM
paratively poor. Evidences of this are seen
in every direction. There is nothing like the
expenditure among business men, or in
society or private life, that was witnessed
year ago. The Park is no longer crowded
with snowy equipages. Costly dinners, ex-
trayagant displays of wealth at evening par
ties lavish expenditures for luxury in dress,
no longer characterize our fashionable circles.
All this is apparent, and indicates unmis-
takably very different state of things from
what has existed hitherto since the war.
Men no longer look upon taxation as trile.
They feel it as burden, growing heavier
and heavier, instead of lighter, every day.
The return of incomes in New York city will
not be one-half what it was last year, and the
same thing is said to be true throughout the
country.
The action of Congress at the last session
tended to make things worse. 1t was utterly
impossible to get the attention of the majority
to the finances, as subject of paramount i'm
portance. Political projects absorbed their
attention Nearly half the aggregate income
tax was deliberately thrown away. Instead
of aiding and fostering Southern industry, so
as to augment Southern ability to pay its
share of taxation, everything done tended to
depress and crush it. Not dollar of aid was
given to repair the Mississippi levees, though
that measure alone would have yielded mil
cotton was taxed. Capital in the South was
loaded with exactions and disabilities which it
was utterly unable to bear. The lessons of
experience and common sense were deliberately
sacrificed, in every direction, to political pas
sion or personal interest The adjustment of
duties on foreign imports was made in utter
disregard of its relations to the revenue, and
became a venal and disgraceful scramble
among special interests for Government favor
and protection.
All these acts are just now beginning to
! bear their natural fruits. The revenue is fall
ing off heavily; progress in redeeming the
public debt must be suspended; taxation
begins to be felt by all classes as heavy
! burden; and there is every prospect that all
| these evils will grow worse and worse, instead
/ OF being relieved and removed. Enormous
| claims, still unliquidated, remain to be added
to the aggregate of the public debt, and there
! is at least an even chance that the taxation of
the industry of the country must be increased
rather than diminished, to meet the exactions
of the impending furtue.
These things prove the absolute necessity of
! greater economy in the management of our
finances, and greater wisdom in the adoption
OF plans for developing our resources and
alleviating the burden of taxation. Whether
we may reasonably hope for these aids is a
matter of doubt; but it is very certain that
without them the country will plunge deeper
and deeper into trouble and confusion.
The Sale of the Dundsrberg.
From ths Herald.
The sale of the armor-plated monster, the
Dunderberg, to the first naval power of Europe,
is proof that American talent is at least un-
surpassed in the Old World, and that in case
of actual war our whole coast would be'alive
with activity in the building of vessels with
which to pay off old scores and wipe out Ala
bama remembrances.
The sale Of the Dunderberg will set our
English friends to thinking. Behind her walls
of iron her two l5-inch guns and twelve more
each of 11-nch calibre would make wild work
on the Thames or along the unprotected coast
of Prussia. No English iron-clad could live