The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-12-18
THE TREASURY.
First Annual Report of Secretary
Manning.
Receipts and Bxpenlitures--Silver
and Tariff Questions.

treasury embraces fifty-eight pages of printed
matter, and is accompanied 10y a special re-
port of fifty-six pages ON the collection OF
customs duties.
The ordinary revenues of the government
for the fiscal year 1885 were S323, 900, 106, and
the ordinary expenditures Gncluding sinking
fund, S45 G04 035 were S305, ,S30,970, leaving a
surplus of 81 $50, i35. As compared with
the preceding year there was decrease OF
4.S29, 1863 in revenue and an increase OF
S16,lO0,690 in expenditures.
The estimated revenues of the year 1856 are
S3l5 900 600 and the estimated expenditures,
including sinking fund $3.50, i50,OOO. For the
wear lSi7 however, the secretary estimates
that there will be deficit of 81, ,5SO ,552, the
revenue remaining at s3l5 100000 and the
expenditures reaching $3.50 5S9,5 or this
estimated increase of S49, 100000 in eNpendi-
lures, S19, 10000 is for pensions, Sl3,OOO,OOO
for the navy, and Si,OOO,0oO for forthcations
The interest bearing debt has been reduced
during the fiscal year Sl0,369, $50, and now
stands at 81 .2G0, rs, 1G2, including the Pacific
Railroad bonds (s64, ,623,5l2l. Tue balance In
the treasury of assets over liabilities has been
increased $5S ,053, 702 since March |, 1850, OF
which SSd, 100000 is silver coin, Sld,OOO,oO0
gold coin. and 900 legal tender notes.
Eighteen pages of the secretarys report are
given to theoretical and historical discus
sion of the silver question. The secretary
argues that the continued coinage of silver
dollars by arbitrary purchases of bullion
without reference to the public demand for
such dollars must eventually make the
United States silver mono-metallic nation,
and put us out of harmony with the CONNER
cial world and tend to defeat international
bi-metaism. He opposes the project for
making heavier dollar, since that would also
operate against international bi-metaisin by
carving us further away from the European
ratio, and because the adoption OF new
ratio would involve the coming of more dol
lars whereas we have more than enough al
ready Stoppage of the coinage, in the sec
retarys opinion, is the efectual and only
remedy for the evils existing and threatened.
On the subject of reform taxation the
secretary says:
Beside the reforms which are desirable for
the effective administration of any system or
taxation levied through imported merchan-
disc, and are Indispensable for the admins
| tration of custom laws, which, like our own,
! are chaos rather than a system, venture
| to hope that in due season it will be the pleas
| ure of Congress to consider some other re-
forms, upon which, as is requisite, all parties
may agree and that are of a different scope.
| Like our currency laws, our tariff laws are a
legacy of war If exigencies excuse their
origin, their defects are unnecessary after
| twenty years of peace. They have been re-
tanned without sitting and discrimination, al
though enact ID without legislative debate, crit
icism or examination. A horizontal reduction
of ten per cent. was made i'll 1872, but was
repealed in 1915 and rejected in 1881. They
require at custom houses the employment
of n force sufficient to examine, appraise, and
| levy duties upon more than 4, lS2 different ar
ticles Many rates of duty begun i'll war
have been increased since, although the late
! tariff commission declared them injurious to
t. interests supposed to be benefited and
said that reduction would be conducive to
the general prosperity They have been re-
tained although the long era of falling prices,
in the case of specific duties, has operated a
large increase of rates, They have been re-
tanned at an average ad valorem rate for the
last year OF over forty-siX per cent, which is
but two and a half per cent. less tl.an the
highest rate of the war period, and is nearly
| four per cent more thau the rate before the
latest revision. The highest endurabe rates
of duty, which were adopted lSj24 TO ,fset
internal taxes upon almost every taxable arti-
Gle, have in most cases been retained now
from fourteen to twenty years after such in
| tcrnal tax has been removed They have
been retained while purely revenue duties
upon articles not competing with anything
| produced in the thirty-eight States have been
discarded, They have been retained upon
articles used as materials for our own manu-
factures dn 1854 adding $40, 100000 to their
cost which, if exported, compete in other
countries against similar manufactures from
untaXed materials. Some rates have been re-
tanned after running the industries they were
meant to advantage. Other rates have been
retained after affecting higher price for a
del.cstic product at home than il was sold
abroad for, The general high level OF rates
mas DeeD retained ON IDe tnGOry OF counter
vailing lower wages abroad, when in fact
the higher wages of American labor are at
once the secret and the security of our ca
pacity TO distance all competition from pau
per labor in any market. All changes have
left unchanged, or changed for the worse by
new schemes of classification and otherwise,
n complicated, cumbrous intricate group of
laws which are not capable of being admins
tered with inpartiality to all our merchants.
As nothing in the ordinary course OF busi-
ic inn fnI m ha rio tla
domestic, as well as the imported, aiticlesis
higher by the amount of the duty and the
cost of sea-transit than the price abroad, the
preference of the taxpayer for duties upon
articles not produced in the United States is
justified by the fact that such duties cost him
no more than the treasury of his country
gets. As for duties affecting articles that are
also produced in the United States, the first
TO be safely discarded are those, upon mate
rials used by our own manufactures which
now subject them to a hopeless competition OF
home and abroad, with the manufacturing
nations, none of which takes raw materials.
1t is not to be doubted that in any reform
which shall finally receive the approval of the
two houses of Congress, they will maturely
consider and favorably regard the interests
which can only gradually and carefully be
, adjusted, without loss, to changes in the leg
islatve conditions for their advancing pros
perity. With this view, have invited in
some 1000 circular letters to our manufac-
turers and merchants, their enlightened CO.
operation in the improvement o. our fiscal
policy, and the replies received will hereaf-
, ter be submitted to the consideration of Con-
, gress.
LIFEsAvING SERVICE.
The usual beneficent results have attended
the operations Of this service during the year.
The number of stations in commission at the
close of the year was 203. The number of
disasters to documentod vessels reported by
the district officers to have occurred within
their field of action is 256, The number of
persons ON board these vessels was 2,2M,
of whom 2, 1876 We're saved and ten lost.
The value of the property involved is
estimated at Si,6oi,455, of which 49, 81, 100
was saved and Sl,25l 695 lost The number
of vessels totally lost was fifty-six. There
We're beside ll5 disasters TO smaller craft,
such as saiboats, rowboats, etc, ON which
were 233 persons 232 of whom We're saved
and one lost The value of property involved
in these minor disasters was So, OPS, OF which
so, ,s23 was saved and 81, l02 lost.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
During the last year work has been in
progress QpOn forty nine buildinps under the