The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-01-31
COLUMBIA, s. G.
Wednesday Morning January 81. 1872
Appropriation. for 1s71-7a..

the "blll to make appropriations and
raise supplies for the fiscal year COM
nencing November l, 1871" which has
been introduced into the House Of Rep
resentatives, and to compare it with the
Act of the same title passed last winter.
The most prominent and significant fea-
ture of the bill is the absence of any
appropriation to pay the interest on the
public debt. Last year, the interest was
fixed at 1882, ,594.40. and an appropria-
tion of that much of the funds raised
by taxes made to pay for it. That sum
is the interest, putting the rate ut six
per centum, on something over So, ,000,-
000. which, we presume, the funded
debt was estimated to be ut that time.
Now. Comptroller Neagle says the debt
is so large, or at least it il so uncertain
what amount of bonds may have been
issued, that he has been, or processes to
be, unable to give an Ineligible or re-
liable statement of the liabilities Of the
State. If thin be true-nnd we are in
clined to think that Mr.. Neagle could
scarcely dare to make such report to
the Legislature if it were fulse, unless
there be somo collusion on the part of
all the State oficinls--then the financial
ruin of the State, so often predicted. is
near at hand. But in endcavoring to
account for the rapid crash of our State
credit, the lame and impotent efforts of
the Governor and the Financial Board
to defend their financial policy; and no.
ticing the atmosphere Of cloud and
doubt in which the Comptroller General
also seeks to envelope everything relat-
ing to the public debt. grave suspicious
arise in our mind that matters may not
be altogether rs they appear. We have
not doubt that many millions of bonds
have been fraudulently issued, and that
r. K. Scott and his ring OF spectators
and public plunderers have thrust their
greedy fingers deep into the State crib.
No feeling of honesty or sense of duty,
in, our mind, has restrained them in the
slightest degree from gratifying their
insatiate thirst for money. But We
know, too, that there is q safer, though
perhaps less remunerative. mode of dab
bling in State stocks and bonds than by
feloniously issuing them; and the idea
does now and then occur to us that Ger.
tain interested State officials may be
aiming only at the depression of the &C.
curities to the lowest possible figures, so
as to repeat again the excellent scheme
by which they lined their purses so well
in 1868.
There are other points, however, Of
the appropriation bill, to which we wish
to call attention. After all the ruin that
has been brought upon the State by the
extravagance in public expenditures
no less than by the venality and felo-
nious malfeasance of certain officials
and after the Wholesale denunoiation
which has been heaped upon the heads
OF the present regime. even by their po-
litical friends at the North, it was to be
hoped that there would be some curtail-
ment in the profigate appropriations
that have been made for the past four
years. One might, at least. expect that
there would be q looping off of some Of
the many useless and expensive offices
which have been created for no other
assignable reason than to furnish places
for the throng of political adventures
that have honorcd South Carolina With
their presence. But we SEQ no evidence
of suoh Improvement in the bill before
uH. Under the head of salaries, we find,
instead of n diminution of offices, seve-
raj additional clerkships, which do not
appear in the Act of last year-the sala-
ries for which amount to So, 500. In the
Executive Department, for contingent
funds for the Comptroller General, At.
torney General, State Auditor, Adiutant-
General, Superintendent of Eduoati on.
Secretary of State and State Librarian.
we note nm increase Of ST.. $50. There is
one item, too, styled ''civil contingent
fund" for which $50, ,OO0 is proposed to
be appropriated, that has no counterpart