The Irish standard., 1900-04-21
Keeping Up the War Taxes.

some OF the leading Republican pa
pers OF the country are agitating the
question: OF repeating part OF the war
taxes. Among them is the Chicago
Tribune. On three occasions it con-
tanned editorials recommending that the
burden OF taxation on the people for the
prosecution OF the Spanisl,-American
war OF two years ago be partially re-
moved. In one OF its leading articles it
says:
There is in the treasury a surplus OF
S14o,ooo,ooo. This is exclusive of the
$50 100000 it is proposed to set aside
as redemption fund. That surplus
represents partly the receipts from the
sale OF bonds in 1893 and partly the cx-
cess revenues over expenditures under
the present taxing laws. That excess
has been $4o,ooo,ooo during the last
eight and one-third months. There
would be no such excess but for the war
taxes OF 1893. The war and its expenses
being over those taxes are producing
surplus which is the fecund parent OF
hundred schemes of plumber. It is a
hotbcd of corruption.
A part OF the surplus-not exceeding
$SS 900, ooo-will be disposed of by its
payment as bonus to the holders OF
the greater portion OF the governments
bonded Indebtedness to induce them to
take per cent thirty-year bonds, which
are commanding a premium. This
mode OF reducing the surplus may not
turn out to be so popular in the country
at large as its trainers imagine it will.
There are already sinister intimations
that this refunding measure, which
seems to have great attractions for
few Of the banks, may be made a Party
question. The payment OF bonuses to
bondholdcrs may not favorably strike
the fancy Of the people.
The taxes being so high as to produce
a revenue in excess of expenditures, the
treasury surplus expands while the
amount of money in circulation con-
tracts. This withdrawal of money from
circulation alarms the treasury officials,
who can devise no better way OF getting
it back into circulation than depositing
it in some OF the banks. The moment
that is done there is cry OF "favorit-
ISM" Whether it is just or unjust it is.
not necessary to say. But it is certainly
an anomalous condition OF affairs when
the revenues are so great that the gov
eminent feels obliged to hand over mil
lions OF dollars, without charging in
tcrest, to be loaned to some OF the same
people from, whom the money was orig
taxes.
Thus the money needlessly paid by
the people under taxing law which was
enacted to meet temporary emer
gency, now long past is put at the dis
posal of certain other people for them
to make all they can out of it. They do
SO by loaning the money not so much
to commercial or industrial interests as
to speculative enterprises, mostly in
| Wall street.
| So long as the surplus holds out,
whether the money be in treasury vaults
or bank vaults, sturdy beggars will be-
set congress and sometimes will cap
ture it. They will demand canal subsi-
dies, shipping subsidies, Pacific cable,
and pneumatic tube subsidies. Not con-
tent with the gift OF a lump sum, no
matter how large, they will insist on be-
ing quartered on the treasury for years
to come. They demand subsidies run
ming for twenty years and rental con-
tracts running indefinitely. If they sue
coed the government will be saddled
with obligations which will have to be
met in lean years as we'll as in fat years.
Whenever another panic comes and the
revenues shrink these continuing con-
tracts in which it is sought to inmesh
the government will plague it sorely.
A surplus engenders governmental
Extravaganza in every direction. Every
department doubles its demands on the
treasury. River and harbor appropria-
tons increase. Unnecessary public
buildings are erected. There is greater
lliberality as regards pensions. Men be-