The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-12-18
MONDAY EVENING, DEC. IS, 1871.

as the Funding Bill, is like
most utterances of angry men, illogical
and inconclusive. The fine sensiblities
which appear to move our contemporary
in its protests on this question, should have
had free scope several months ago, when
the project was first preached. Even a
cursory review of the financial condition of
taxpayers in Virginia, much less the
elaborate calculations we now find in the
Enquirer, would have led that paper to the
conclusion that the obligations sought to be
imposed by the funding bill, were not only
unjust, but impossible of fulfillment.
Reputation has no friends and the En-
quirer need not indulge in 'th' Ercle's
vein" as its special antagonist but it is
because reputation and its dire consc-
quences are known and feared that the
people are determined not to be placed in
position to be compelled to choose between
it and ruin, by saddling themselves with
illegal obligations, when, in their impover-
ished condition, it is often impossible for
them to meet their legal obligations.
The dire extremity to which the funding
bill pushes the people, is now admitted
even by the Enquirer but the avenues of
escape which it names, are so absurdly
unequal to the emergency, that the list Of
economies suggested in the Governors
Message are practical in comparison
Now put all this together, and is repndiation
We can reach 1873 without increasing the rate
of taxation and then we can act as the oraer
gency III emergency EXIST may require.
BY reducing the county taxation, the people
taxation. ,iife fI
Reduce salaries; diminish the number of OIL
ces; have short sessions of the Legislature, and
no recess; cut down the pay of clerks, doorl1eep-
ers and the like reduce the number of judges
do anything and everything-so that we save the
good name and credit of proud old State, never
yet dishonored. Of or
We cannot reach 1873 without increasing
the fund, which fifty cents on the 500
tax will bring into the Treasury. We
cannot even pay the July, 1872, interest,
let alone that falling due january, 1873 !;
and we can clearly see the emergency which
exists, and the action Of the Legislature
shows they are ready to act as the emer-
gency requires, and forbid the assumption
of more new debt, when the people are
breaking down under the old debt. "
Reducing county taxation" is the
panacea prescribed. Does not the En-
quirer know that county taxation is most
carefully administered by Board of
Supervisors, in daily and direct commmi-
cation with the people of the counties, who
are their fellow taxpayers and the i'm
position of any rate of tax one mill in ex-
cess of imperative current necessities,
would meet prompt and overwhelming dis
approval.
Reduction of salaries sounds well, but
this is glittering generality without an ell
ement Of substance. Salaries in the coun-
try are low in all cases where the power
to designate salary is left with the people :
and as the salaries of the State appointees
cannot be reduced during tenure of present
incumbents, it is not difficult to measure
the worthlssness of the suggestion, unless
the offices themselves be abolished. as the
Governor recommends in the case of circuit
judges; and parsltaony in judicial stipends
IS too often most dangerous economy
The Legislature, it is presumed, will sit as
long as public necessity demands, but not
an hour longer, and the pittance to be
saved by cutting down the pay of clerks,
doorkeepers, and the like, would not pay
one days draft on the treasury on account
of the compound interest nep debt saddled
upon the State. FAsiAsA
"Let it be remembered that this year the
people will have only one years taxes to
pay, instead of t,co," says the Enquirer.
tits remembered, in connection with the fact,
that taoo years. tares at 80 cents on tie 500
Is insufficient to meet the demands of the
funding bill for one gear and it is the re-
membrance of this fact which dictates the
House policy" hitherto mayest thou
come, but no farther"
There is a wide difference, which, how
ever it appears, cannot be discerned by the
Enquirer, between repudiating legitimate
and an illegal obligation, and also between
refusing to pay legitimate debt, and post
poning its payment to some future time,
when the means to liquidate may be pre-
cured without such sacrifices, must result
IN general ruin. he
The creditors of Virginia, from whom
"she got one hundred dollars IN gold for a
promise to pay one hundred dollars" are
not the loudest clamorers for the funding
bill, but those who, specializing upon her
necessities, made themselves owners of her
ill-advised interest certificates, or her GER
tificates of stock, bought at low figures, on
which operations they realize handsome
actual profit if they can fund two-thirds
into Q per cent. coupon stock and still
hold the other one-third as contingent |
claim, good for its face and per cent. per
annum interest, when suitable legislative |
occurs, or can be brought about.
1t may be true that, "a considerable
amount (of the debit held abroad
and also, that 'sfrom various causes con-