The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-21
SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 81. 1873
9ur Debt and Amiable English Com
missioner.

missioner.
We have word to say to our excellent En-
glsh gentleman. Mr.. Aitingstall, who comes
here as commissioner of the council of Vir-
einia bondholders in London. lie visits
our state to ascertain, no doubt,
what action the legislature of Virginia
will be likely to take, at its next
or some future session, in regard to
the funding bill of 1871. We would not
have him return to the London capitalists, |
by whom he is accredited, under any erro-
neous impression, and shall, therefore,
speak very plainly in what we have to say.
We regret that he should have been
tempted into the use of such language as
that attributed to him in the report of last
evenings conference. In contemptuously
speaking of "Federal satraps," and the
'pirates and semi-ciyilized people" by
whom The government Of Virginia was adj
ministered prior to 1870, our English
gentleman was very unfortunate as imam
cial commissioner accredited by the Lon
don bondholders, as a reference to his
own memoranda, if he has any,
will show. For under this very admins
tration, which he pelts with such sweet and
amiable adjectives, he will find-by turn
ing to his memoranda that interest at the
rate of four per cent. was paid on the
whole debt; and that the interest was not
stopped until the "great and good Conser-
vative party" now SO benignly ruling the
state, came approvingly Ito our affable
English commissioner into power.
The horrible Federal satrapy," with
its '.pirates and semi-ciyilzed people,"
which paid four per cent. on the whole
debt, Tor enforced its paymentJ were ter
ribe set OF fellows, no doubt but it comes
with an i'll grace from representative Of
the London bondholders to thus character
ize them, while the four per cent is still
fresh and jingling in their eapacious wal
let's. We admire good taste everywhere
and in everybody, and are an especial
stickler for it in our English gentleman.
who is so proverbially courteous and affa-
BILE after a good American dinner, which
we are sorry Mr.. Artingstall did not get
yesterday. For had he not been misera-
bly, dined and wined, we are certain he
would never have INDUCED in the over
crusty explosives attributed to him.
But this is not what we want to say to
Mr.. Artingstal. The little debt of Vir-
GINA is what he is looking after, and no
IA A baf
he should find it, and ultimately get it, than
we. The worlds barometer of exchange
hangs up in London, and we are not SO
envious of the power and greatness Of
England--the financial mother of us all
as to wish to tear it down, or impair the
accuracy Of its just increments or ditferen-
tial fluxions. We would not even jar the
golden tripod on which it rests: least of
all, would we snatch it from the cherished
grasp of our amable mother" because
she is now and then unfortunately addicted
to calling us hard names, which are only
found in our own perverted photography.
London's financial greatness and power
will never be disturbed, much less assaied,
by pen Of ours, however much we may be
classed with "pirates and semi-cvilized
people,"
But to oun mutton---reguar English
southdowns," if you please. Mr.. Art
ingstall says that the act of 1871 was re-
garded as a "fair and honest % attempt,
voluntarily initiated by the most inluen-
f,aJ nd ofob MI oc
Cd to settle her financial obligations on
basis satisfactory to English cap
italists," etc. Had our English commits
sioner been here in 1871, and known the
bargains and seen the appliances by which
this "honest attempt" was undertaken
and carried through the legislature of that
year, his opinion would hardly have been
SO confidently stated. Mr.. ArtingstaH is
a financier-a London fnancier--a finan-
cier who has had ample opportunities to
watch the tripod of exchange, ana UNDER
stand the barometric laws by which the
finances of the world are moved. He
knows how war affects the barometer, and
what mighty defleations it sometimes caus-
es in its finger-points, indicating the ex-
IRENE verge of financial ruin to different
states and nations, as the index-hand
is depressed to the sub-yertical point of
the tripod. He knows how Virginia was
crushed to the earth and her financial life
stamped out of her; and he knows, too,
how unwilling the bondholders--th Lon
don as well as Wall-street bondholders--
were to make any concessions in her be-
half. He says as much, even, in the little
protocol which he presents from the
London council of bondholders. Know
ing all this, as well as know
ing that England-the mighty and
potential arbiter of war and financial des-
tiny in Europe-has uniformly treated in
terest as suspended during AGAR, when her
4 own subjects were the parties affected
thereby, and has been forced to recognize
the same principle as applicable to those
under other nationalities, Mr.. Artingstall
not only complacently approves the COM
pound interest swindle Of 1871, but con-
sents to pocket some eighty millions Of dol
lars IN interest apo,a interest, which was so
fairly and honestly" put upon the peo-