The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-05-07
A Foreeaat...The Ouestiona Of the Flu.

A FOrecast.--TheQ Questions OF the Flu.
ture.
From the Net0 York Sun.
Slavery and its concomitants, after
playing great part In American az
fairs, are about to leave the scene for
ever. What subject shall IN the 1mme-
diate future, become the Leading object
had peacefully expired, 1t might be diff
ficult to name the topic that would next
the attention of the masses Of
the people; but 1t persisted amid a civil
wa- whose expenditures exceeded those
of any similar event in history. Free
from public debt at the COMMENCEMENT
OF the struggle beyond the example Of
knowing Federal taxation only as
name, our people North and South, at
the close of the four years. contest,
found that they had spent therein sew
en- thousand millions of dollars, and
that, after plotting out the monetary
obligations of the Confederates, there
still remained a public debt, Fed
wards of three thousand millions
of dollars. To pay the interest
on this debt. and carry on the
Federal Government even In time OF
peace, now requires the payment OF
annual taxes, direct and indirect, to
the amount of from three hundred to
three hundred and fifty millions of dol
lars.
Thus stands the case to-day. Ten
years ago the widest prophet never
dreamed that such a tax would ever be
levied upon the American people, while
the most enthusiastic calculator would
have denied that the nation could stand
20 pT1t
both the prophet and the, calculator
have lived to see the tax assessed and
collected, and their descendants will
probably see 1t, or sum approXtma-
ting to 1t, levied and paid in every year
down to the close of the current CEN
fury.
We spent these vast sums, contracted
this colossal debt, and devised this
searching system of taxation amid the
confusion of war, or OF civil COmmo-
tons hardly less distracting than con.
flicts in the field. The opinion is gen.
oral that the interest of the debt is too
high, and should be reduced, and that
our customs tariff and our scheme of
internal taxation distribute their bur
dens unequally among various branch
es of industry, and bear with cruel in
justice upon the middling and laboring
classes. The validity of the national
debt is guaranteed by the Constitution.
The raising of enormous amounts an
nually by taxation of some sort Is
stern necessity. Every man who yields
assent to the logical deductions of his
tory and philosophy, rather than TO the
imaginative achievements of slate
and pencil, believes that the principal
of this debt will not be materially re
duced for years to come. The great
effort of every generation, therefore,
while the debt exists, will be not SO
off 70
annual expenditures necessary to dis
charge the interest thereon and meet
the current demands of the Govern
ment, '-
On this subject we may learn lesson
from England's error. Since the down.
fall of Napoleon, now more than half a
century ago, whenever the treasury has
shown surplus, her Chancellor of the
Exchequer has devoted 1t not to the
liquidation of any part of the public
debt, but to the reduction or the aboli-
ton OF some particular tax; and the
debt exhibits the same gigantic figures
to-day that it showed when England
banished the Emperor of the French to
the rock of ST. Helena. We may talk
OF the superiority of our resources, and
the more rapid growth of our country !;
but in this particular American states
manship will, for many years to come,
be likely to copy England's example,
while demagOgism will be apt to say
1--WE shed the blood and raised the
money; let posterity pay the debt,
while we discharge the interest and
reduce our taxes" s-..r
Our present object, however, is not to
PROFOUND financial theorems, but to
point TO the subjects which, in our
judgement, are to play leading part
period in the future. They may be
called by the general name of Finance.
They will provoke severe struggles
between rival industrial pursuits,
between capital and labor, between
the very rich and the men of medium
means, between the middlinG inter-
est and the extremely poor, each of
the classes striving to shit the burdens
OF taxation upon the others. And he
is 81 sanguiue prophet who predicts that
the same kind of financial problems
which try the patience and tax the
purse of this generation, will not dis
turb the equanimity and deplete the
excnPquer of our descendants fifty
years Eence.
In assigning to financial discussions
the chief place in national affairs for a
long period to come, we are not I'M
mindful that other important subjects
will challenge the public attention as
we'll. Among these will be the better
ed ucatiOa of the masses of the people,
gratifying improvements in the condi-
ton and compensation of the laboring
classes, the complete abolition of i'm
for debt, ameliorations in
our criminal codes, the advancement of
women to wider sphere of influence,
and especially the extension of the
system in the western hem
isphere by the annexation of new ter
ritories to this Republic. But along
with these questions the most impor-
tant place will be occupied by the dis
cussion of those measures which al
ways deeply concern a people that owe
heavy debts and are compelled to sub
NIT to onerOuS and depressing taxation.