New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-01
PERILOUS FINAYCIERING.

Controller Green has published a statement
of the operations of the City Treasury for the
quarter ending July 81. If the operations of
the County Treasury were included and the
| period covered were twelve months instead of
three, the document would be valuable AS it
| is, we have not been able to derive from it
| any important addition to our previous knowl-
edge.
Two months ago we criticised the reduction
of the City and County taxes from thirty-two
million dollars in 1872 to twenty seven
millions in 1878 as false economy. In
that opinion we are much strengthened by
events which have since taken place. The
property on this island is now mortgaged to
pay interest on $l37,OOO,OOO of City and County
debt, the interest on which, at 81 per cent, is
S8,9O5,OO0 year. This debt is increasing, and
must continue to increase rapidly II only
twenty-seven million dollars are raised by
taxation to provide for forty million
dollars of expenditures We think this
city has about all it can do to take care of
the debt as it now stands without adding to
it one dollar on any pretext. Taxpayers may
rest assured that the ordinary expenses of the
municipal government will increase quite as
fast as their ability to pay. 1t will not be
easier to settle for public Improvements ten
years hence than it is now. The City Gov
eminent and the Legislature at Albany must
begin to act on this view, or the inevitable
end will be municipal insolvency.
The aggregate amount Of the outstanding
bonds of the City and County of NewYork
on the 31st of July, 1872, was $12s,0O0,0O0, and
or the 31st of July, 1873, $136,00O,00O. But in
1873 the cash in the City and County treasur-
les was $4,500,000 less than in 1872, SO that
the erue increase of the debt has been about
twelve million dollars, or ten millions if we
allow for the increase of the Sinking Funds
But in 1872 the taxes produced thirty-two
million dollars. This year only twenty seven
millions are to be raised, and the State Gov
eminent requires four millions more of this
than it did in 1872. Only very small part
of the ten millions increase 10 the debt within
the last twelve months can be laid to the
Tammany regime. The debt increased be-
cause the taxes were insufficient, and it is
destined to increase by still greater sum,
we think, within the pext twelve months for
the same reason.
The old laws, passed by the Tweed Legis-
lature Of 1881, which authorized aud contem-
plated an increase of no less than fOrty-fye
million dollars in the City and County debt
in one year, ape still made use of by the
Board of Apportionment to increase our load
of debt. At the session of this Board on the
23d of August an issue of one hundred thou
sand dollars of stock was voted for the pur-
pose of raising money to pay for repairing
sewers This was done under an act of 1871
and what is it but literal carrying out of the
programme of the old Tammany Ringf And
can this pro1gate system of borrowing be fol-
lowed much longer without injury to the NUM-
cipal credit Here we have, under Reform adj
ministration, the debt increasing at the rate
of ten per cent per annum, or doubling in
about seven years, rate of progression which
is out OF all proportion to any increase in the
ability of property owners to endure taxation.
We are to issue bonds for mole than one
third OF the current years State tax. and OF