New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-03-24
orr NAuoNAL FINANCES.

Whoever gave any credit to the bulletin of
Mr. Alex Delmar, issued some eight or ten
months ago, in gleeful response to n call from
few of our leading Copperheads, wherein he
demonstrated that our Treasury would be
empty and our Finances utterly down at the
heel by the 1st Of July next, must be
rather astonished to learn that, though
no fraction of additional burden has since
been laid on the people, we have still about
One Hundred Millions in the Treasury whereof
Seventy-fve Millions belongs there, (the resi-
due being balanced by Certificates of Deposit
afOat) and are able to resume in earnest the
extinction of our Debt, by buying up and
paying off at least Fifty Millions of principal.
We might do this tomorrow without endanger-
ing the prompt payment of our acGruing In
terest; and we do earnestly hope to see the
process of paying off resumed and vigorously
prosecuted at an early day. We are tired of print
ing monthly statements that our Debt is about
Twenty-six Hundred and Fifty Millions, from
which deduct cash in the Treasury, One Humid
red Millions, and there will remain due Twenty
five Hundred and Fifty Millions or thereabout:
we want TO state at an early day that the cash
lately ON hand has been mainly devoted to the
purchase or payment of Debt, so that there re-
main but Ten Millions or so in the Treasury
while the Debt has been actually reduced to
Twenty-Five Hundred and Fifty Millions.
We object to the retention of so much, OF
(ndeed) of any large amouat in the Treasury
on these grounds
/. 1t aggravates the premium on gold. The
Government makes gold Deedlessly scarce in
the street, by piling up cords Of it in the Trea-
sury. The Gold Certificates are the gold
gamblers chips or checks, whereby they are
enabled unduly to depress the public credit.
We. insist that the Treasury shall desist from
banking their pernicious game.
ii. 1t subjects the People to heavy loss.
Had the surplus gold in the Treasury been
persistentIy applied, from the LIST of January,
1866, to the purchase and extinction of Public
Debt, that Debt would have been at least
Twenty Millions less than it is. We have
seen the time, not long since, when
Seventy Millions Of Gold would have bought at
least Ninety Millions of Bonds. That day has
passed. never to return. We must now pay at
least Eighty Millions for Ninety Millions of
bonds, and perhaps more. But our bonds are
creeping surely up to par, and we should buy
willie we can still buy at considerable dis
count. At all events, we should no longer keep
the Treasury full Of gold and pay interest
thereon
III. There is danger in this vast accumula-
ton. We presume all our Treasury officials
are honest men; yet they are subject
to temptation like tho rest of US. Sup
pose one who had access to the treasure vaults
should be persuaded, by some sanguine or des-
perate broker, that he could borrow 100000
from the millions without detection, and that
the broker had a " dead sure thing" for max
ing a fortune suddenly Herewith; when the
gold could be replaced, two families made
happy, and no harm done; and suppose there
should be "slp-up" in the "dead sure
ching requiring another 100000 and then
another, and another, until the abstraction had
run up to millions, and could no longer be
concealed-would there be anything different
in this tragedy from what transpires periodi-
GalIy al AROUND US When banks cannot pro-