The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-12-08

cation, the practical result would be to with
draw the same from gold. That would be
change without advantage in any respect, ant
in every respect with disadvantage.
More conferences. further diplomatic cores
pondence are proposed. venture TO think
with all due Difference to those who are re.
sp1nsible for decision, that the time for an
other conference has not arrived, and that The
moment for diplomatic interference is not
perfectly telieitous. A conference will be pro-
ntaole not until after any reluctant State
has placed herself in substantial accord with
former conferees whose concurrent purpose she
has long known and twice frustrated In
short, it is now for Great Britain TO make
propositions to other powers. When, if ever
she preceyes her interest to lie in retracing the
error Of 1916, she has the means of appnsing
other powers Of change in her opinions.
To go on as we arelis the least creditable Of
all the courses open to our choice. The treasury
silver purchase is defended by nobody, ap-
proved BY nobody; even every vote for the free
coinage Of silver is vote that the
Treasury silver purchase shall cease, an asser-
ton that it ought to cease. II is an expense
and taxation demonstrated by experience to
be of no avail for any useful end.
10 stop the purchase Of silver Is our duty,
and our interest.
To stop the purchase of silver will arrest the
growth Of that standing shame in our finance,
the treasury surplus. 1t will put us in the
way Of abolishing the same altogether, not by
cheating our creditors. shaving our pensioners,
or Gripping our wage-e -earners, but by enabling
the treasury to hold the silver dollar firmly in
local parity with the gold dollar until we can
unite with the leading powers in restoring and
establishing their permanent equivalence.
II the law were repealed which makes COM
pulsory Treasury purchases Of silver, and if
that repeal were accompanied by the declara-
ton Of Congress that the United States now
hold themselves in readiness to unite with
France, Germany, and Great Britain in open
ing their mines to the free coinage Of silver and
gold at ratio fixed by international agreement,
IT is the deliberate judgment Of the undersigned
that before the expiration Of another fiscal
year this international monetary dislocation
might be corrected by such an international
concurrence, the two monetary metals restored
TO their old and universal function as the one
standard measure Of prices for the worlds
commodities, the depression Of trade and in
dustry relieved, and general prosperity
renewed.
l respectfully recommend to the wisdom Of
Congress the unconditional repeal Of the act
OF February 2S, 1878, accompanied by such
declaration:
PAYMENT OF THE oREENBAcKs.
The public debt consists of four principal
items. which are. in round numbers, as
follows:
/. The unfunded debt
United States legal tender, s3i6OOO,OOO
2 The funded debt
Loan Of 1882, three per cents, e4,O0O,O0
Loan Of 1891. four half per cents, 0,0O0,Ooo
Loan Of 1907, four per cents, Tss,OOO,0oO
Including the 81 900, 900 a month expended
for silver, the total annual surplus revenue has
been nearly $l25,000,000 a year for the last
seven years. With this surplns-xe have been
paying off funded debt at an average -fate- or
$lO0.000,000 year, and have been spending
the residue mostly on silver dollars, Of which,
in January next, S25o,000,OO0 will have been
coined.
That part Of the funded debt subject TO call
has now been reduced to $64, oil, 800, and, in
September, payment TO any holder without
regard to future calls, was publicly offered.
According to the best forecast now
to be made in matter that can better be
judged of from week to week, it will be prac-
tieable to have called for payment the last of
the three per cents by the first Of next October
Shortly after the term Of the present Con-
gress expires, and long before the Fiftieth
Congress in the natural order of events would
assemble. organize, and determine upon new
il is probable that existing tax laws
(at time when the annual larger commercial
need and use Of money in moving
the crops gives to their operation
the most serious consequence will be with
drawing from circulation and pouring into
the treasury the proceeds of surplus taxa
ton, beyond all sums Of which the present
Congress has hitherto considered or prescribed
the employment A needless depletion Of the
peoples earnings at the rate Of $l25.000,0O0
year the present Congress can completely cure.
Setting aside the vanishing three per cents
and the unfunded debt of S346, 900, 600, the
residue Of the public debt has been in such
wise funded by our predecessors that
$3.50. 900, 900 cannot be paid, except by pur-
chase at high premium to the bondholder,
before September l, 1891, and that $751;, ,776, 400
cannot be paid, except by purchase at a high
preminm to the bondholder, before July l,
1907. On and after those loans are payable,
at the option Of the United States, at their face
and without premium. The Ipresent premium
on the four and half per cents Of 1891 is
about ii per cent. The present premium
on the four per cents Of 1907 is about 2S per
cent. To continue our present surplus taxa
ton, and to employ its proceeds now or for
some years TO come in giving 10 the bond
holder any such, or still higher, premiums by
anticipatory purchase of those bonds before
they are dne and payable at par, is a fiscal
policy so unnecessary, extravagant and
merciless to the industrious toll
ers Of land. from whose earnings.
profits, or capital are deducted and taken all
the revenues Of the treasury, that / cannot
presume .heir representatives in Congress
would let stand any law devolving upon the
head Of this department such thriftless task.
therefore respectfully recommends
l. Repeal Of the clause in the
act of February 2s, 1873. msking COM
pulsory. treasury purchases of silver,
for the reasons heretofore given
and in order to reduce surplus and unneces-
sary taxation $4,000, 900 year.
2. Gradual purchase and payment of
S346,6s1,Ol6 outstanding promissory notes
of the United States with the present and ac-
cruing treasury, surplus, issuing silver certih-
Gates in their room, and gold certificates if
need be, without contraction Of circulating
volume Of the currency.
REPEAL OF THE TARIFF on WOOL.
Under our system of government by party,
end the rule Of the majority, do not think it
unbecoming even in a public officar at this
time to recall certain responsible and specific
pledges in respect to the sum and methods Of
Of the United States, in the exercise Of law
ful election, took away the administration Of
this government from the party intrusted
Herewith for quarter Of a century and lodged
it in other hands.
These pledges never can be fulfilled without
a reform in the sum and methods of Federal
texation, Nor can our country ever profit
fully by its Incompatible advantages among
the nations of the earth in population, peace,
land, and liberty so long as we go on pleading
infancy, and swaddle, in medieval rags, its
victorious energies.
1t is actually the war rates Of the war tariff
of the last generation under which we are now
living; for the undebated, unsifted law of
1888, made by conference committee, did but
keep alive the body Of the tariff of 1864.
The average percentage Of the taxes on, to
the values Of, imported commodities has been
as follows:
Per cent
Morrill, tariff of ls59-'6l. (before the war;