Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-12-10

year then remaining, about $4,000
900. The duty of one cent per pound
on sugar, if continued, would produce
during the two months of the fiscal
year remaining after the first of May,
about SIS. 000, 900. These two sums,
amounting together to $50. 1000 900, IL
added to the of the second
half of the fiscal year, would yield the
treasury at the end of the year an
available balance of $76,644,605.78.
The additional revenues required
to carry out the program of military
and naval preparation of which have
spoken, would, as at present estimated,
be for the fiscal year 1917, 500, 100000.
Those figures, taken with the figures
for the present fiscal year which I
have already given, disclose our inan-
cial problem for the year 1917. AS
Stunning that the taxes imposed by the
emergency revenue act and the pres
ent duty on sugar are to be discontin-
ued, and that the balance at the close
Of the present fiscal year will be only
$40, 644, sos. rs, that the disbursements
for the Panama canal will again be
about twenty-five millions, and that
the additional expenditures for the
army and navy are authorized by the
congress-, the deficit in the general
fund of the treasury on the thirtieth
of June, 1917. will be nearly two hun
dred and t~hirty-ive millions. To this
sun at least fifty millions should be
added to represent a safe working bal
ance for the treasury, and twelve mil
lions to include the usual deficiency
estimates in 1917; and these additions
would make a total deficit of some two
hundred and ninety-seven millions. II
the present taxes should be continued
throughout this year and the next,
however, there would be a balance in
the treasury of some seventy-six and
a half millions at the end of the pres
ent fiscal year, and a deficit at the
end of the next year Of only some fifty
millions, or, reckoning in sixty-two
millions for deficiency appropriations
and a safe treasury belance at the end
of the year, a total deficit of some
one hundred and twelve millions. The
obvious moral of the figures Is that 1t
is a plain counsel of prudence to con-
tinue all of the present taxes or their
equivalents, and conine ourselves to
the problem of providing $112, 000, 900
of new revenue rather than 1927 ,000,-
900.
New Sources of Revenue.
How shall we obtain the new -eve-
nue.? We are frequently reminded
that there are many millions of bonds
which the treasury is authorized I'M
der existing law to sell to reimburse
the sums paid out of current revenues
for the construction of the Panama
canal; and it is true that bonds to the
amount of $22, 4S2,0 900 are now avail
able for that purpose. Prior to 1913
$138, 900, 900 of these bonds had actual
ly beer sold to recoup the expenditures
at the isthmus; and now constitute a
considerable item of the public debt.
But l, for one, do not believe that the
people of this country approve Of
postponing the payment of their biilst
Borrowing money is short-sighted
finance. 1t can be justified only when
permanent things are to be cor
plished which many generations will
certainly benefit by and which it
seems hardly fair that a single genera
ton should pay for. The objects we
are now proposing to spend money
for cannot be SO classified. except in
the sense that everything wisely done
may be said to be done in the interest
of posterity as we'll as in our own. 1t
seems to me a clear dictate of prudent
craftsmanship and frank finance that
in what we are now, l hope, to under
take we should pay as we go. The
people of the country are entitled to
know just what burdens of taxation
they are to carry, and to know from
the outset, now. The new bills should
be paid by internal taxation. q
To what sources, then, shall we
turn? This is so peculiarly a question
which the gentlemen of the house of
representatives are expected under
the Constitution to propose an answer
to that you will hardly expect me to
do more than discuss it in very gen
eral terms. We should be following
an almost universal example of mod
ern government if we were to draw
the greater part or even the whole of
the we need from the in
come taxes. By somewhat lowering the
present limits of exemption and the
figure at which the surtax shall begin
to be imposed, and by increasing, step
by step throughout the present gradu-
alton, the surtax itself, the income
taxes as at present apportioned
would yield sums sufficient to balance
the books of the treasury at the end
of the fiscal year 1917 without any
where making the burden treason
ably or oppressively heavy. The pre-.
else r~eckonings are fully and accurate
ly set out in the report of the secre-
tary of the treasury which will be i'm