Year: 1865

The report of the Secretary of tn,


Treasury is a comprehensive review O.
the financial situation, in which he freely


expresses his views and makes such sug


gestlons to Congress as he considers best


calculated to gradually emancipate the
country from the evils inseparable from
! an enormous rational debt and an inflated


and deprecated currency. He moralizes
| like one who, disliking his surroundings
sighs for some Utopia which he knows to
be beyond his reach. He regrets the


plethora of paper money, and sees that it
IS undermining the morals of the people
by encouraging waste and extravaganza,
and the only remedy, in his opinion, is a
reduction of the currency. But elsewhere


he qualities his opinion by saying that a
very rapid reduction of it would be dis
astreus,. though there is no reason to ap-
prehend that any policy which Congress
may adopt will cause such rapid reduc-
ton of prices as to produce very serious
endorsements to trade, and that the in
huences of funding upon the money mar
ket will sufficiently prevent the too rapid
withdrawal of legal tenders.


He estimates that the public debt will
amount, on the first of July next, to
three thousand millions, but the unsettled
and accrUlng claims against the govern
ment cannot now be computed. Mean
while he observes that if the expendi-
lures of the remaining three-quarters Of
the present fiscal year prove equal to the
estimates, there will be deficiency to be
provided for by loans Of S142, ,194, ,947, ex-
elusive of $32, ,536, ,901 of five per cent.
notes, portion of which is now in pro-
cess of redemption. Hence he asks for
power to sell six per cent. bonds to pro-
vide the means of meeting this deficiency,
as well as to retire compound interest
notes, as they mature, and plain legal
tenders, He cannot understand how the
funding of currency can fail to reduce
prices; but the example of it which he
has already furnished has shown that at
least it does not affect the price of gold,
while, without lowering the price of the
necessaries of life. 1t exerts depressing
influence upon government securities
This is because there is public distrust
of the worth of the remainder of the
currency as compared with gold. He
does not formally endorse the recon-
mendation of the Comptroller of the
Currency for further issue Of national
bank currency; but he admits that the
South is in great want of bank circula-
ton, and regrets that the North received
the whole of the authorized three hun
dred millions He recognizes his own
poWerlessness, beyond very narrow linn
1t, when he remarks that there IS more
danger to be apprehended from the ina
bility of the government to reduce its
circulation rapidly enough, than from
too rapid reduction of it; and it is part to
prevent financial crisis, that is certain
to come without it, that the Secretary
recommends contraction. He places
great reliance upon the revenue, and sug-
gests the prOpriety of funding the entire
Indebtedness of the nation into five per
cent perpetual annuities, the interest of
which, supposing the debt to be three
thousand millions, would be one hundred
and fifty millions per annum. By the
application of one hundred millions to
to the payment of the principal, he shows
that the debt would be extinguished in
little over twenty eight years.


Without entering into further details,
however. we may say that the report is,
on the whole, conservative, and calculated
to soothe rather than excite apprehen-
sions of the adoption of radical meas
ures.-Nee0 York Herald.