The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-25
NO RELIEF IN PROSPECT
Another Addition to the Public
Debt Expected Before
December.
HIGH COST OF THE RESERVE.
Its Maintenance Under Democratic
Control Involves Loss Of
$3.50, 100000.

NEW YORK, n. Y, June 24.-A Press
Washington special says: For the third
time since the Democratic party was placed
in control of the Government the gold re-
serve is restored to 500, 900, 600.
The contract with the bond syndicate
requires the payment of sc, ,0OO, 900 more in
gold to the treasury. When the transac-
ton by which bonds are exchanged for gold
is completed the combination which has
been protecting the reserve will be under
no further obligation to prevent the export
OF the yellow metal. 1t is a remarkable
bit of financiering on the part of the Demo
cratic administration-frst, calmly to let
the reserve be invaded and then frantically
try to restore it.
The question is often asked among finan-
cial observers in Washington, why, if it is
necessary at all to maintain the reserve,
should it be permitted to disappear? BY
much less effort and much smaller premi-
um gold could have been bought when the
reserve was S100, 100000 than when it was
$50, ,000, 900. The second time the reserve
was cut down to $50, 100000, it naturally
cost still more to buy gold to make up the
loss. The third operation was so costly as
to call forth the joint criticism OF Re-
publicans and Democrats at the oppor-
tunity. given by the administration in
private contracts to bond sharps.
The receipts of the Government are not
in the healthy condition it was ex-
pected they would be by this time. The
bitterest opponents of the Wilson German
law supposed that the speculative move
ments in sugar and whisky could not stop
an improvement beyond the month of
May. June has almost passed. and with
its close will come the end of the fiscal
year. The receipts show no improvement
from whisky or sugar.
The total excess of expenditures over
receipts at the close of business to-day was
nearly S4S, 600. and this showing is likely to
be continued to the end of the month.
The receipts from customs for June will
be about $40, 100000. The average receipts
under the Mckinley law were Sic, OC0
and from that up to S21, 600 600 month.
The treasury will not be in healthy
condition until it gets sufficient money to
pay its current expenses, and the outlook
for the coming fiscal year is of the most
dismal character. All the estimates of the
President and Secretary of the Treasury
are fully $50, 100000 out of the way, and
Congress will be assembled in its fifty
fourth session before the deficiency will
have disappeared, even under the most
favorable circumstances.
1t will be an interesting spectacle to see
a Republican Congress addressing itself to
the odd task of supplying to the Govern
ment sufficient revenue in the certainty
that all such efforts will be fought by
Democratic minority and a Democratic
executive.
So long as President Cleveland has power
to pay the bills of the Government with
money borrowed from his friends at a
costly premium, he will be in favor of
allowing the country to drift on its present
course.
1t will not be serprising if the English
bankers who made So, 9,000, 900 out of the
last bond deal should seize the oppor-
tunity afforded them with the close of the
terms of their contract to draw the reserve
gold back again into their Golfers. This
can be done without any trouble in the
helpless condition of the treasury, and the
fonrth addition to the National debt under
the Cleveland administration is likely to
come before December.
The contention of the Republican leaders
last winter that all the trouble in the man
agement of the treasury arose from lack
of revenue has been proved to the utter
most. The Cleveland administration has
suffered from lack of means ever since
the tariff system was threatened and the
revenues have grown smaller at every
stage in the Democratic progress toward
free trade. None of the theories of the
tariff reform movement have worked out
to the benefit of the Government and the
American people.
To-day is seen gold reserve, which
never should have been cut down,
restored to s1OO, 100000 only after the un-
necessary expenditure in bonds and in
terest of $2S5, ,s43, 1856, together with de-
ficiencv of nearly $50, 0,0O0,OO in cash. In
other words, the $1O0, ,0O0, 900 reserve, which
could have been maintained without cost
had the Republican party continued in
power. has been brought back to its origi-
nal figure by Democratic management
only after loss of $685., ,000, 900.