New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-12-06
MIR. BODTVFLHS EXHIBIT.

| Three Hundred and Eighty three Millions Of
| income for the fiscal year which closed with
| last June, whereof One Hundred and Twenty-siX
| Millions were absorbed by the interest OH our
great National Debt. Thirty-ive Millions by
Pensions, mainly paid to soldiers disabled IN
our late Civil War or the widows OF those
killed therein, leaving the actnal current cost
| of running the Government about One Humid
red and Thirty MiliOns-Nincty-fOur Millions
of principal of the Debt cxtinguished within
| that year, and Two Hundred and Seventy
| seven Millions since Gen. Grants inaugural
ton, March 4, 1862 down to the 1st inst snch
are The grand outlines of MIR. BOutwclrs finan-
cial exhibit, and they fully justify his self
compaccncy. We have no knowledge and no
belief of any payment in Six years OF so
many Millions in reduction of the principal
of it's Debt by any Government that ever
existed as ours has paid since the close
of our great struggle. If great sacrifices
had been made, great privations endured,
in order to effect this result, it would still
have been theme for just felictation
but the Secretary is right in affirming that
these have been years OF more than average
prosperity for our pcople-that their labor has
been fully employed and fairly recOmpensed,
and that "Our system of taxation has not been
Oppressive to individuals, nor has it in any
"scnsible degree embarrassed the business of
"the country" Our country never before
built, and improved, and increased her aggrc-
cate production, so fast az she has done during
the last six years. Compare these benign re-
suits with the enforced idlcness, the bank
ruptcy, the stagnatiOn, the misery, of the SIX
years following our War of Independence and
the six years following our later War with
Great Britain, and then believe if You can
that Protection to Home Industry had no part
in producing this gratifying contrast.
We agree fully with MIR. Boutwell, in urging
Congress to allow much more liberal COM
mission, discount, premium, or whatever yOu
please to call it, in order to secure the funding
of our vast Debt at lower rates of interest.
We would have but one rate-four per cent.
per annum, payable quarterly-and we would
so issue or date the bonds that One-twelfth of
the interest should fall due on the 1st of each
month. We would employ, not every banker,
but one great house like the ROthschilds or
Barings. to place this loan, agreeing, if we
could do no better, to sell it to that house at
95 per cent. of its face and to buy up provided
it could be bought at or below par) two per
cent. of the entire loan per annum until the
last bond was called in and cancelled Suppose
the sum 80 funded to be Fifteen Hundred
Millions, which with the discount or COM
missOn) would now DO Fifteen Hundred and
Seventy five Millions. Tho interest on this
loan would amount to Sixty-three Millions,
instead of the Ninety Millions we are now
paying ON that same amount at six per
cent. The Twenty-scven Millions Der
annnm that we should save by thus funding
would wipe out the discount or premium in
less than three years; it would, wholly unaided,
pay off our entire Debt in less than fifty years.
In other words: With our Debt funded at four
per cent, we conld pay the last fraction of
principal within that period by an annual pay
ment of the identical sum that we must other.
wise pay for interest alone, leaving the prin-
cipal undilninished. How can Congress remain
Indifferent to the advantage of snch funding
or obs,ruct it by imposing conditions that
render it unprecedented
We rejoice at the indication afforded by his
Report that Mr.. Boutwell, purposes to stop