The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-10-02

authority. Moreover our present annual rate
of increase in income resulting from increase
of population and of laborerS, and from I'M
provements IN machinery, is about one hund-
red and twenty millions of dollars (S12O,000,
000)-and this, regardless of occasional reverses
and financial panics. is absolutely progressing
in sort of geometric ratio. Many who now
hear me will live to see the population OF
this country reach one hundred millions 100,-
600, 000), and by calculations which will err IN
being too small if they err at all, our income
will then exceed fifteen thousand millions
($15, 000, 000, 000)-or five times as much earned
and realized every year as our entire puDilc
debt of all forms is to-day.
MIR. Blaine answered the inquiry, "Why,
with such a vast income, are we borrowing
nation?' 1t was simply because our people
lived better and faster than the Europeans, SO
that with all our enormous Income we save
much less than they. But if, said the Speaker,
for single decade we should by any concert OF
action live on as economical scale in this
country as they do in the most favored Eu-
ropean kingdoms, or as we did ourselves only
twenty-five years ago, we should save enough
to recall every American stock and bond from
the Golfers of foreign bankers, and should pay
OIL with ease our entire national debt, or az
least have it held among our own people, which
In itself would constitute no small decrease OF
its burden.
There is one feature in our progress which,
despite all drawbacks of personal extravaganza
the future. 1t u.s. that rapid as may be our IN
crease in population, Our increase in property is
in vastly greater ratio From l79O TO 1871
our population increased about one thousand
thousand per cent. In other words our popu-
laton In 1870 was ten times as large as in 1870,
while our property in 1870 was fifty times as
great as it was in 1890. We can hardly assume
for the future that our wealth will grow five
times as rapidly as our population, but ] think
lahnr-SaVInO
modern invention is producing, and with the
high vantage ground we already possess in that
regard, We may safely count on such rapid
increase of material wealth as will in very
brief period render our indebtedness-if it be
not unwisely increased-an inconsiderable bur-
den. By the census of 1890 it was apparent
that the aggregate property of the nation only
allowed one hundred and fifty dollars 10 each
individual. BY the census of 1870 this had in
creased to eight hundred dollars per heal. And
now it may be confidently asserted that before
we have seventy-fve millions of people We
shall have one hundred thousand millivns of
property.
In closing tho Speaker made brief allusion
to the great questions of the day-tarif and
currency internal improvement and cheap
ransportation-wbich he thought were sus.
ceptible of fair settlement after full discus
sion. SIN the final arbitrament of wise
craftsmanship it will be found in regard to
these questions and all others of like magni-
tude, that the interest of one section is the
interest of all, and that the more perfect
Union which our fathers sought to establish
will be fully and finally realized when each
section is unwilling to enjoy an undue advan-
tage over any other, and when all sections are
alike ready to be governed in what they ask
and in what they give, in what they demand
and in what they concode, by that spirit of
patriotism which obeys the authority of prin
ciple' and always yields to the 'despotism of
dnty.'"
An Associated Press despatch says that
$1,000 people were present to hear the address
of Speaker Blaine.