The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1886-12-09

choice, our duty, and our interest. 1t wi
stop wasteful and injurious expense
and the taxation which defrays il
II will commence and promote n
form in the sum and the methods O
federal taxation. 1t will recover to th
United States an equality of position (non
coinage) with foreign powers, which vii
give us due influence in negoatition.
Will induce negotiation, and negotiation +
the end of relief, not for the purpose of de
lay. Stopping the purchase and coinage o
silver is the first step and the best which tn
United States can take in doing their grea
part to repair the monetary dislocation o
the world.
To stop the purchase of silver will enable
| the Treasury, while the monetary system i
| restoring to its normal conditions, to main
tain with certainty and greater ease tn,
present stock of silver coin at par with golC
| in all our fiscal aud local uses, to the greai
| relief from distrust of the owners and EN-
J plOyers of capital, and so to the greater re
| lief and increasing emplOymento of labor-thG
first fruits of sound finance and the first con
dition of prosperity.
To stop the purchase of silver of course
will cause a new fall in the London mar
| ket.
To stop the purchase of silver will thus ar
rest the growth of that standing shame in
Another years delay in stopping the sill
| yer purchase is the loss of remunerative
prices upon another wheat crop of the
United States; is another years stimulus to
lndia's competition for the foreign markets
of our agricultural product, and reduction
| of our ability to hold that market against
any competition in the world, measured by
a common money!
While our war-tariff taxes, prolonged
after twenty years of peace, have been
choking off our manufactures from success
| ful competition in foreign markets with the
products of nations which do not tax raw
materials, we have deemed foreign markets
for the surplus produce of our farms sure
as seed d-time and harvest. Our command of
them at least we have deemed unassailab BILE.
They are in peril.
1t is for Congress to consider whether a
policy which does not prevent the loss of
% per cent off OF our silver output to a few
thousand mine-owners, but prolongs the loss
to many million farmers of % per cent off
the price of their annual wheat crop, should
not now be abandoned and the only policy
adopted which promises to restore the
former prosperity of both.
The Secretary recommends the repeal of
the act OF February 2S, 1873.
FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES.
The public debt consists of four principal
items, which are, in round numbers, as fol-
lows
1. The unfunded debt
United States legal-tender notes.... s3l5OOO, 200
2. The funded debt
Loan of 1882, three per cents ts. 64OOOO 900
Loan of 1881, four and a half per
2JO0O000
Loan of 1907, four per centS,....... 73S, 900 600
During the last seven years the receipts of
the Federal Treasury have been over s., 500, :
900; the net ordinary expenditures have
lppQ N
the excess of the ordinary revenue has been,
upon an average, over $100, 100000 year.
Including the 81 900, 900 a month expended
for silver, the total annual surplus revenue
has been nearly $l25, 900, 900 a year for the
last seven years. With this surplus we have
been paying off funded debt at an average
rate of S10O, 900 year, and have been
spending the residue mostly on silver dollars,
of which, in January next, go, ,000, 900 will
have been coined.
The Secretary declares that the present
Congress can prevent the needless depletion
of the peoples earnings at the rate OF S125,-
0OO,O0O per year by cutting off the surplus
taxation.
Employment for the proceeds of our sur
plus taxation, reasons for delay In reducing
our surplus taxation, he says, can no longer
be found in rapid payment of the funded
debt. Setting aside the vanishing three per
cents and the unfunded debt of S346, ,000, 900,
the residue of the public debt has been in
such wise funded by our predecessors that
$3.50, ,O0O, 900 cannot be paid, except by pur-
chase at high premium to the bondholder,
before September 1, 1891, and that S737, 49,
400 cannot be paid, except by purchase at
high premium to the bondholder, before
July l, 1907. On and after those dates, re-
spectively, but not until then, those loans
are payable. at the option of the United
States, at their face and without premium.
The present premium on the four and half
per cents of lS91 is about IL per cent. The
present premium on the four per cents of
1907 is about IS per cent. To continue our
present surplus taxation, and to employ its
proceeds now or for some years to come in
giving to the bondholder any such, or still
higher, premiums by anticipatory purchase
of those bonds before they are due
and payable at par, is fiscal policy so un-
necessary, extravagant, and merciless to the
industrious toilers of our land, from whose
earnings, profits, or capital are deducted and
taken all the revenues of the Treasury, that
cannot presume their representatives in
Congress would let stand any law devolving
upon the head of this department such
thriftless task.
He also declares to be indefensibIe the con-
tinuance of our present surplus taxation and
its employment in extravagant appropria- |
tions and its employment to increase the |
Treasury boards. |
Secretary Manning learns from Treasurer
Jordan that the public debt can be paid |
without continuance of our present surplus |
taxation, but merely by conformity to the |
'inking-fund law and the regular annual ap- |
preparation therefor, from now till 190S-to |
wit, by "the purchase or payment of one per |
'eIt of the entire debt of the United States |
o be made 'Oithia each fiscal gear, which is to be
'et apart as sinking fund, and the interest |
IN which shall in like manner be applied to
he Durchase or nayment of the nuhlic debt
Is the Secretary of the Treasury shall from
ime to time direct"
He reviews the financial situation and de-
,lares that we should reduce taxation i'm
nediately to annual revenue sufficient to
pay our annual expenditure, including the
linking fund, and excluding the silver pur-
,hase; and pay our unfunded debt of $780,
urplus which will accrue before the whole
of taxation can be made or take
fleet, and while no more funded debt can
'e paid except at premium during the five
-ears from now until 1891.
He then makes the following recommends
ions:-
Repeal of the clause in the act of Feb
uary rs, 1878, making compulsory, Treas
Try purchases of silver for the reasons here
ofore given and in order to reduce surplus
md unnecessary taxation S24 900, 900 a year.
Further reduction of surplus taxation,
eginning in a manner which will be sug- |
ested below, close down to the necessities
f the government economically admins
cred.
S-Repeal of the act of May 81, 1873,
making compulsory, post-redemption issues
nd reissues of United States legal-tender
otes, thus facilitating
4EGradual purchase and payment of $S46,-
81, ,Ol6 outstanding pronissory notes of the
'nited States with the present and accruing