Litchfield enquirer., 1868-10-29

three leaved wand of free labor, equal rights and peace, which has caused the great Northwest to prosper as no commu- nlty of men ever prospered before? When the blight and the traditions and the su- perstitlons of Slavery have passed away, is 1t to be supposed that the fairest and most prolific regions of the world, the great Southwest, extensive as European empires will fallow as at present, with less than oEe per cent of their surface under cultivation? If there is a cotton crop at this moment of three million bales-three fifths of the old maximum-willy you venture to predict it's amount fifteen years hence, if it should be fairly open to free labor, and the circula- tion of capital and of ideas? To talk of the inability of the United States to pay their debts in coin is an insult to human reason. Industry, honesty. and, above all. peace-peace which the great soldier, to whom more than to any one man we owe our victory, so earnestly invokes-will make the debt disappear almost before we have time to fund it; and in these circum- stances the capitalists of the world will have to get up early if they wish our bonds at AZ per cent. We borrow now at about 7h per cent In the dark days of'the war we paid about IT per cent Those were
 
 par in Europe, and United States securi- ties for 35. There has been at least some progress since then. When the war was over and our whole outstanding liabilities had been figured up, the total of the debt, on August 1st, was found to be ($3, ,287,
 733, ,329,) little less than $3, ,300,O0 ,000. On the 1st of August, 1868, it was $2, 2,485,- 100000. During three years. therefore, we had reduced the debt just one quarter, say $500, ,O00, ,000 It is almost superhuous to say that am at this moment following the masterly and luminous address of Mir. Atkinson of Brooklyn, for trust that this invaluable document is in the hands of eve 1y man of either party who wishes to know the state of tho national finances.
 OUR DEBT COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER
 NATIONS.
 It is impossible to array statistics in q more convincing shape, and l, for one, be- ieve his facts and his differences to be be- yond dispute. Those who have studied his statements, as we'll as the speeches of Sum ner, Boutwell,, Fessenden, and other emi- nent Republican authorities on this vital question, may defend the Republican pol icy in financial matters against all assail- ants. In round numbers, $1 ,650, ,00O, ,000 in currency have been contributed by the people between April 1, 1865, and June 30, 1868, to the support of Government. Of that enormous amount-more than $5O7, ,OOO, 900 year-by far the greater part has been spent for the civil war and the interest on the debt which the Rebellion caused us to create, over and above our vast yearly contributions during that war. In those three and quarter years, our or dinary expenses over and above war debt and war interest, paid, as MT. Atkinson has proved, were less than $92, ,O00, ,O00 of currency, say $65, 100000 in gold, each year. I doubt whether the history of na- tions has any thinglike this to show re- duction, in little more than three years, of one quarter of,a great debt and diminu- tion of the annual expenses of a vast re- public like ours to so small @ sum. Add the interest of the debt at six per cent, say $120,0 ,000, and you have less than $200, 100000 in gold as our yearly budget The annual expenses of Great Britain, with its debt funded at three per cent, are $35O, ,0OO, GOO; those of France are, at the very least, $400,000,O0O. Each power is spending at this moment about twice as much as we spend, while the principal of the French debt is quite as large as ours, and that of the English 60 per cent larger~ Yet the English three per cents are at 94, the French three per cents at 69I while our six per cents are hardly 75. Is not this tho very essence of unreason? Com pare, for example, the respective position of those two great countries, the French Empire and the American Union. I shall not say word of the comparative value of their institutions or their schemes of na- tional life. Look only at financial facts France has somewhat less numerous pop ulation than that of this Union-say 38, 100000. The latest and must trustworthy statisticians compute the yearly product of the Empire at twenty milliards of francs say $4, ,OOO, ,OOO,OOO, or exactly what was the The sum total of her debt is just equal to ours. Her yearly budget is more than double our own. How are these four hun dred annual millions of dollars spent? Thanks to the superior credit enjoyed by the Empire over that of the Union, the in terest of her debt is but 6S,OOO,OOO in gold. This leaves her $333, GOO, ,OO0 And how does she spend these $333, ,OOO, 900? The army and navy take each year in time of peace-the iron-clad peace, which IS all Europe ever knows-about $40, ,OO0, GOO. The estimates for the current year of the United States Government for army and navy together are S57, 100000 in currency; equal to $40, 100000 in gold, or $1OO, 900 less than those of France. Let me not fatigue your patience with more details. We perceive that France with less nume- rous population than our own, and the same amount of debt and annual produc- tion, spends in time of peace twice as much as we do; that her army and navy expenses are three-and-a-h half times as large as our own; that she has at this moment, ready to respond to the first cannon-shot in Europe, 100000 soldiers, equal to any the world ever knew, one-tifth more than the whole number we disbanded as soon as the armed Rebellion was overthrown. Re- member, too, that her production seems almost to have reached its limit; that her population is nearly stationary, having scarcely doubled in TO years; that her ex- penses have been annually increasing with dizzy speed; that her debt is rapidly aug menting, having doubled in the last 15 years, and then remember that our popu- lation doubles in little more than 20 years, our annual production every dozen years, our accumulated capital every eight years, while our debt has been decreased 25 per cent in ee-and-a-q quarter years-and then