New-York tribune., 1874-10-26
I,1 YES


months TO vast amount of cant about the
finances of the Nation and of the State and
City of New-YOrk. We are told that the Ma
ton, State and City are all In first-class fipan-
cial condition, that retrenchment has been the
order of the day since the offices were filled
by their present occupants, and that change
is in the highest degree dangerous and un-
desirable. Now we believe nothing of this.
We believe that the people Of the cities OF
New-York and Brooklyn are already taxed
almost double the amount that would be ne
cessary under an efficient and honest admins
tration of National, State, and Municipal al
fairs. We see no necessity for this virtual
confiscation of property, this merclless levy on
the income of the professional man and the
laborer, this ever-grOwing weed of taxation
with its roots stretching down into every
mans pocket, even to the beggar's
The direct payments of the people OF
the State of New-YOrk into the treas
uries of the Nation, State, and City now
exceed ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars a
year, and the indirect waste, obstruction, pill
lage, and loss, arising from the way the taxes
are collected, is probably as much more. The
number of people who will vote at the cleo
ton next week will not exceed eight hundred
thousand, and this we take to be the number
of those who are in receipt of wages, or
income from investments, and who, by their
exertions, support the women and children,
the aged, sick and infrm, the idlers and
thieves, who constitute the remainder of the
population. A very simple calculation makes
it appear that the eight hundred thousand
Ctof xubn raa1lv prn1ucp
thing, are taxed every year on what they earn
no less than one hundred and Twenty-Five
dollars per head. OF this immense levy fifty
five millions are direct taxes, paid into the
State, county, town, and city treasures, and
the remaining fOrty-fve millions, which is a
low estimate, consist of the indirect taxes paid
to the National Government.
We maintain that it is indispensable that
this burden of taxation should be reduced,
not by loading our proflgacy on posterity in
the shape of bonds, but by cutting down ex-
penditures. A few sixpences may have been
saved at Washington and Albany, but of any
thing worthy the name of retrenchment we
see no more indication than we do of the re-
turn of the age of glaciers and the times when
men lived nine hundred years. We showed
tDe OuHcT udy tuC pionioCu
by Messrs. Dawes and Garfield was not to be
discovered by ordinary vision. The former
gentleman has lately made two speeches, full
of devotion to the political organization of
which he is product, but we cannot find a
word in either of them about the thirty mil
lion reduction of expenditures. We conclude
therefore that there is not even sufficient SEM
blance of existence in the thirty million re-
trenchment to answer for campaign purposes.
Like the "happy adjustment of the financial
question by Mr.. Dawes and Speaker Blaine,
the less said about it the better for its
authors.
Three years ago at Albany October II, 1870
Senator Conkling made his great speech about
Democratic extravaganza in the administration
of the State Government. How have the
pledges in that speech as to the conduct of
affairs by Republicans, when they should come
into power, been redeemed We shall take
up here the subject of prison management, as
that filled the largest space In the Senator's
speech, and is besides the complete counter
part of its twin iniquity, the canal manage
ment. In 1862 and 1868 the Republicans, ac-
cording to the Senator, managed the three
prisons of the State with the following
results: