The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-21

and will be built, and in part by Government
aid On this point, we have no difference with
our correspondent. We fully agree that the
national wealth will be largely and rapidly
augmented by the building of these roads,
that the annual product of our mines will pro-
badly be doubled, and that our public lands
(which railroad grants are said to sequester TO
Hrivate or corporate use) will really be quad
Tupled in value and settled many times as
fast as they would be in the absence Of the
roads. The Governments grant of public
lands in aid of the Central line, 80 far from
diminishing the area of available public lands
or their value, has largely increased both; and
it would have increased them far more had
not most of the lands traversed by this road
been absolutely barren and worthless. The
friends of the proposed roads can say nothing
to this effect that we will not heartily indorse.
Now look at the other side:-
l. Our national debt is fully twenty-five
hundred millions Of dollars. We are saddled,
moreover, with pension list of some thirty
millions per annum. What with war CLAIMS,
etc., the dead-weight which our people are
required to carry cannot be less than two
hundred millions per annum, And this bears
the heavier that Americans have not, until
within these few last years, been accustomed
to heavy taxation.
II. This burden is soon to be reduced, we
trust, by funding the bulk OF our debt at lower
rates of interest. If it can be funded at four
per cent and the consequent saving OF in
terest devoted to the extinction of the prn-
cipal, we can pay off the last dime within forty
years without increasing taxation. And this
is the goal we keep constantly in view and
esteem paramount consideration.
III. To this end, it seems Indispensable
that we should. Convince capitalists that
we will honestly aud faithfully pay our debt
70 the last dime: 2. Stop increasing the
amount OF our bonds afoat and begin steadily
reducing it.
If il were settled and generally understood
that United States bonds would never be more
abundant than now, but would from this hour
become scarcer and soarcer, the price of those
bonds would largely and rapidly appreciate,
and they would be in constant, eager demand,
Instead of sending bonds to Europe and sell
ing them there at 20 to 2j per cent. discount
from their face, we should lift them at once
to specie par, and soon be selling four per
cents at higher prices than our SKIES now
bear.
|, Hence we say, the first duty of the Govern
ment is to reGstabish its own solvency. 1t
has no business TO be lending its credit till it
has proved its right to credit. We are now pay
ing forty millions per auuum more as interest
on our national debt than it ought to cost; and
we can never save that vast sum to our tax
payers till we stop lending our fly-blown
credit and begin in earnest the reduction of
our debt. Until that point is secured we are
opposed to any new business undertakings or
peoupiary assumptions by the Federal Gov
eminent. And we think this moribund Con-
gress should not saddle the incoming admins
tration with burdensome enga gements and
persistent obligations.