Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-10-02

Kr. President aad Geat1enen Of tie association:
When accepted Your cordial invitation to be
present to-day, it was with the distinct under
standing that the formal address of the occasion
should he delivered by an ther, and that any,
thing might have to say would be secondary
and sttbord nate. This arrangement was changed
short time since without consulting me; and if
this larsc audience shall feel disappointed with the
result, as fear they may, they must not Law the
charge at my door but hold the officers Of the
Association re- ponsible in such exemplary dam
age, good Wisconsin sense of Justice NAV
impose.
believe by modern usage address before an
agricultural society is expected to leave agriculture
severely alone-on the very sound and sensible
presumption that the audience have far more
knowledge on that subject than the speaker is likely
TO possess. In my own c. certainly, am ready 10
admit the ftl force of such presumption-.for
although was born and reared amid an agricul-
tural community In Western Pennsylvania, and
have lived all the years of my maturer life in the
best agricultural district of Maine, do not claim
such practical knowledge of the great art and
science as would enable me to give one word of
needed instruction to the assemblage which
have now the honor to address.
| shall, therefore, for the brief period that
may claim your attention, confine my self TO SUBJ
lect OF interest to you as American ctizens-and
indeed, might add, of especial and significant
impoi tance to YOU as farmers represcnting "a Won
the country. and standing you do in the att-
tude of responsibility, both present and ultimate,
which that relation to the property of the county
implies and imposes.
l shall speak to you of our Public Debt-not
mainly of what We understand as our National
d, bt-but Of all those forms of State and NUM-
cipal obligation which involve taxation upon the
People.
Public Debt is one Of the rapid out-growths of
modern civilization. In its present form it was
certainly n nah
Cicero says that the Roman Provinces in Asia
were accustomed TO borrow, and Livy, in a pas
sage somewhat obscure, speaks of Loan once
contracted by Rome to meet the expenses Of the
Punic wars. These exceptional references, how
ever, only prove the rule that the use of credit
was not one of the recognized resources of ancient
Nations. The vast accumulation of trea sure
made by some powerful Monarchs of the olden
time is another proof that credit was not used, and
that loss resulting from the idleness of money was
not recognized or apprec tied as it is by the
keener calculations of modern capitalists. Ptol-
emy Philadelphus bad at one time in his Treasury
what would be equivalent to four hundred mil
lions Of dollars in our coin. The Roman En-
peror. Tiberius left 2,7t0 million sesterces
tSll0,00O,000) to his successor, Caligula, who
bligingly spent the whole of it in single year.
These sums, though they do not seem large in
comparison with the great aggregates of modern
national debt, yet represent in their purchasing
power at the time, larger ula ion of actual
money than the Treasury Of any Iation has con-
tained at one time since the dawn of the Christian
era. The first Napoleon, among modern rulers,
initiated on diminished scale this barbaric ac-
cumulation of treasure, nominally belonging to
the State, but really subject to the Individual will
and caprice of the Sovereign, and generally used
for purposes which would not make credit Bile
appearance in official budgets or regular appro-
priAtion bills.
era had passed be:ore Nations learned the art of
borrowing as we now understand it. Holland
and Spain had perhaps in the sixteenth century
the first regularly organized national debt though
it is claimed that the French Rentes, the national
security still SO well known and so popular among
that peop e, originated early as 1875 in the
reign of Charles Fifth; l am disposed to think
however, that 1t was in very irregular, shadowy,
and irresponsible shape. running over only from
year to year according to chance, and not exist
ing as stated loan with regul,r allowance of
interest.
Undoubtedly the debts of Holland and Spain,
contracted largely in their wars with each other,
the one atteu ping to intiict, and the other sue
cessully resisting, great tyranny, were the first
that became regularly funded, with periodical
payment of interest, the resources for which were
derived from taxation. SO sorely were these
taxes felt at Amsterdam, as an accurate historian
tells us, that 1t was common saying that who
ever bought much as fish paid for it once to
the seller and six times TO The State. In pain at
that time the receipts OF the precious metals from
her South American colonies were so large that
the debt did not weigh heavily on the home
COVE vtrnment as the corresponding obligation in
Holland.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century
England emerging from that great contest for
Constitutional Liberty which forever dethroned
The Stuarts, formally entered for the first time the
list of National debtors. 1t was in 1894 that she
borrow cd the initial pound sterling of that debt
which in one hundred and twenty years. at the
close of the terrible struggle with Napoleon,
reached the enormous aggregate of nine hundred
ami two million pounds (f902, 900 O00)-over four
thousand five hundred millions of dollars (S4, ,500,-
900 and constituting at that time a burden
upon England as great debt of twelve thou
sand millions of dollars (S'2, 900 000) would
constitute to-day. From the date of England's
becoming a borrower, debt seemed to be a conta-
gion among the nations-and though less than two
centuries have elapsed since Englauds debt began
there is now scarcely a civilized country on the
face of the globe whose people have not mort
gagged the future for the benefit of the past and
the present. The Briti,h dependencies in Asia
and Australia and the star off Isles of the sea- are
heavily in debt to the Bankers of the Mother
country; the civilized and semi civil ed govern
mcnts in Africa and the Orient that skirt the
shores of the Mediterranean are mortgaged to the
money lenders of Eu ope; the nations of South
America without exception have all trodden the
same weary road; while every European power
from Russia to Portugal groans under the weight
of its national obligations.
Mr.. Dudley Baxter, who is recognized author
lty on questions OF this character, gives the aggre
gate populations of the borrowing nations of the
world at trte over six hundred million souls
(6OO,O ,0O0-and the aggregate of national debts
owed by them amounts to twenty thousand millions
of dollars ($20 000, 900 ,000)-wth an annual
interest charge Of more than eight hundred mil
lions of dollars $500, ,000,000). 1t i, melancholy
thought that this almost ncalcuable sum of money
was borrowed and expended, not 10 promote the
ends of peace, not to develop agriculture or the
mechanic ara, not to build great highways for
commerce and TIA ade, not to improve harbors and
the navigation Of rivers not to found institutions
Of learning of charity or of mercy, not to ele-
vate the standard of culture among the masses,
not for any all of these great and laudable OBJ
jects Were these countless millions Of treasure
expended but for the waste, the cruelty the untold
agonics of war. And the vast bulk of this pro-
digious sum total not only went for war, but for
wars of ambition and conquest in which the fate
of reigning dynasties was the stake, and not the
well-beng of the people or even the aggrandze-
ment of the nation itself ia the higher and better
sense. In our own country we have had four
wars-and with the exception of that with Mexico,
they may certainly and fairly be called defensive
wars on cur part-for they were assuredly wars
essential to our national existence and indepcnd-
ence. But still this fact leaves us no exception to
the rest of the world, that war. however unavoid-
able in case. was nevertheless the direct cause
of our national burden. Our total national ndeht-