Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1873-11-08
PLAIN PAcTs:Poa TnE PEoPLE.i


the day. Although The distinguished orator
addressed himself TO the Agricultural inter.
ests Of the country, the facts stated, and the
conclusions reached, are equally applicable
to all sections and to every branch ofindustry
In reference TO the financial condition OF the
country, the general said:
The tendency of our people, whether
in their national, municipal, and social
organizations, or in their personal capa-
city, to 90 into debt, cannot have cscap-
ed the attention Of every discerning
mind. Indeed, drawing drafts on the
future, payable by postcrity, and bur
dening the present generation TO pay
the interest is the resort for carving
on all enterprises, and has assumed
such proportions as is fraught with
such consequences, that the mind of the
statesman and the philosopher of po-
lltical economies may well be turned to
1t with the greatest attention, if not
alarm, because of its possible results up
on our future prosperity. Our Nation
al Government is owing $4,000, ,O0O.o
on which we are paying, as in terest, an
average Of rising six per cclt. reckon
ing that interest in the currency with
which all our products are measured
At least three foufths OF the amount is
due to foreign bankers and capitalists.
If this were all, and no other conse.
quences arose from it, there need he lit
tie anxiety, and it would hardly lie
worth the attention OF the Statesman or
economist i'll calculating the future of
the nation. Divided among forty mil
lions of people, in country of the cx-
pansc and resources of ours, it would be
easily managed. But every State in
this Union, with hardly an exception,
has debts amounting in the aggregate to
quite $4,000, O,00U,0 900. But our indebt-
edness does not stop there. Quite every
county, every city and town, in every
! State i'll the Union owes debts, more OF
less, to an amount in the aggregate, Of
perhaps, ono half as much as the debts
OF the States, including the advances
made for municipal, railroad, and other
like enterprises.
Nor do we stop here. Our railroads
have borrowed, and are owing a bonded
debt of 100000, ,0CG. Nor does the
furor of Indebtedness yet stop. Almost
every college and institution Of learning
from the modest academy up to the
university, each and all owe sums Of
which an approximation can hardly be
made, and which no statistics show
Nay, we 90 still further. We draw up
on posterity to get the means of hear
ing the Gospel. All know that very
large majority of the thousands of
churches which the census shows have
buildings dotting our lands, have been
built on credit given, in fact, by the com
ing generation.
Gen. Butler then Showed how the proceeds
ofthe war debt of the nation and of the bulk
of the Stale debts were destroyed in the war
that costly public or educational buildings dc
not add TO their productive capacity, and thai
of the S120 100000, which we must annually
pay abroad, only 50OOO,O 900, are the products
of our gold and silver mines the rest must be
payed fiom the products of the soil, exported
abroad. He continued
Now, as our statistics show that, as a
rule, for the last eight years, not to GO
back further than the conclusion of the
war, our imports of foreign merchan
disc annually exceeded our entire ex
ports, including gold from our mines
which all goes abroad, you will natur
ally ask me, how has the interest in til,
meantime been paid, and how the bal
ance yearly found against us of tho
difference between the amounts of oul
imports and exports? | have just stated
to you that we owed substantially nuut
of these national and State debts con
tracted during the war to the foreign
bankers at its close, but we have been
paying balances of trade, which have
been against us year by year by expand
ing our interest bearing bonds, running
for twenty and forty years, and sellin:
them sometimes as low as sixty cent
on dollar TO pay the interest on tn,
bonds themselves, then already sold
and balances until we have sent out o
the country our notes or bonds to the
immense sum before stated. Now, ther,
must and will come time when thi!
sale of bonds abroad must stop, becaus,
our national income exceeds our expen
ditures, and we shall not incur any new
debt, and nothing will be left us will
which to pay the interest upon what We
owe to Foreigners, unless we export
more than we import to an amount suf
ticient.
In the production of that which i,
consumed to support life of men and an
imals, we have, rs agriculturists, beer
skimming the very cream from on
lands, and at no distant period we shall
be obliged to go back and go over them
again and renew them which we have
worn out. The time is within the mem
ory of many who sit before me when
the Genesse Valley produced the wheat
and flour which fed New-England; yet
within five years wheat raised by labor
costing $3.50 per day has been brough
from California, fifteen thousand miles
round the Horn, and ground in thu
mills of Rochester, in the centre of thu
State of New York, to feed its people
New England and New York next re
ceived their wheat from Virginia, rails
ed on lands now overgrown with darl
pine saplings, worn out by wasteful and
exhaustive culture without renovation
Then St. Louis flour was the favorit'
brand in our markets. Now our breaC
is grown still further west and north
and Minnesota and Iowa are the whea