New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-01-30
PROSPECTS or THE TREASURY.

There are indications that Secretary Richard
son is exerting himself to make respectable
exhibit in the Public Debt Statement for the
current month, which is to be given to the
public next Monday. 1t is already given out
that the Debt will show little or no increase,
that the revenues of the Government are rap
idly recovering their old proportions. and that
the eighteen millions of reserve greenbacks
not yet issued will probably last until next
May. 1t will be great misfortune II the
country is deceived for single moment as to
the true condition of the Treasury. Congress
should be furnished with no excuses for fur
Their inaction. Congress and the Secretary
have been playing fast and loose with the
finances long enough. Let them not escape
the responsibility by bandying it about from
one to the other.
1t is doubtless true that the Governments
income has been nearly and perhaps, quite
equal to its expenditure for the month of
January. Considerable collections OF internal
taxes on the National banks fall within the
present month, and the heavy quarterly pay
ments for pensions are not charged against
the Treasury until February. This is also ono
of the months when the revenue from GUS
toms is large, goods being imported and taken
out of warehouse in preparation for the Spring
trade. However, with all these favoring in
fluences, the Debt was slightly increased in
January, 1878, and we know of no reason why
the figures for January 1874, should be more
favorable.
The great source of tho deficiency in the
revenues is the falling of in the receipts from
customs. We are as yet unable to discover
any signs Of a revival in this branch OF our
foreign trade, or any influences at work which
can produce such a revival for months to come.
Among the chief articles of foreign produc-
ton from which the gold revenue of the
Treasury has heretofore been derived are
manuIa,uu,Uo Of NON aud stool, and COTTON,
wooden, silk, and linen goods. In relation to
iron and steel, it is sufficient to know that the
consumption of those articles has greatly fallen
off, and that foreign manufacturers are, at
least for the present, almost completely ex-
Guided from our markets. AS TO dry
goods, the prospects of the Spring trade
in the present condition of the coun-
try, and especially of the South, are any
thing but brilliant The weekly returns of
the imports at New-York and Boston. which
include more than three fOurths of all the
imports of the United States, afford no con-
firmation to the assertion that the income from
customs has revived, or is about to revive.
On the 4th of December in reviewing Mr..
Richardson's official estimate of the revenue
from customs for the last nine months of the
current fiscal year, we placed the gross amount
of receipts at Sl0O0O0,OOO, against the Secre-
tarys estimate of S111,OOO,0OO. The actual re-
ceipts for the corresponding months of the year
1928 were $1300OO,0O0. If his estimate
should, prove correct the falling off would
be only fifteen per cent while our estimate
involves decrease of twenty-three per cent.
The actual decrease of customs receipts at the
Sub Treasury in this city for the months of
October, November, and December has been
twenty per cent. The actual decrease of i'm
ports at the ports of New-YO and Boston
for the first three weeks of January is from
S31, 100000 in 1878 to 500, 100000 in 1874, OF
nearly thirty per cent. Whatever may happen
between this and the 30th of June. certain it
is that there are as yet no indications of such
an active market for foreign produce and
manufactures as to restore the customs rev.
enues to anything like an equality with those
of twelve months ago.
We can now discuss intelligently the pros
poets of currency expansion. The currency
revenue must in any event be far from suf-
fcient to meet the currency disbursements
Up to the panic this deficiency was met by
the weekly sales of gold. These have now for
several months been suspended. We have
uniformly expressed the opinion that be-
tween the imitation of the legal tender circu-
lation above $4,000 900 and selling gold, the
latter was much TO be preferred. The gold
market is now overstocked and the amount of
gold actually owned by the Treasury is re-
0uced to a comparatively small sum, yet we
still think the Secretary would do well to re-
sumo his gold sales. Indeed, it is only a
question of time when these sales
must be resumed. If the present policy is
persevered in, the legal tender circulation must
be expanded, not only to meet the deficiency
of the general revenues of the Treasury, includ-
ing customs, but also to cover the deficiency
of the currency revenues alone, as compared
with the entire currency payments The lat
ter deficiency is from four to six millions a
month greater than the former. and will
speedily exhaust the fraction of the reserve
which remains unissued. The resumption of
the weekly gold sales is therefore only qrles-
ton of two or three months at the outside,
supposing Congress to peIseyere in its policy
of mastery inactivity. Congress has refused
" entertain the idea Of cutting down tho sD-