Year: 1868

The public debt was increased by
twenty millions of dollars during the
month of January-nearly two-thirds
of million each day. This does not
bear the appearance of a speedy exiting
ton of the debt. Those eminent tiRan-
cial theorizers who regard national
debt as national blessing, and who
have been disturbed in their minds lest
we deprive posterity of its share of the
burdens and benefsctions of the debt,
can, we think, afford to dismiss all
further appIehensions. Posterity will
not be cruelty bereaved by our in
tense zeal to e1tinguish the debt before
the close of the present century.


There is, apparently, no disposition
in Congress to hasten legislation on
financial and revenue questions. 1t was
as we'll known On the first day Of the
session, as now, that the Government
was deriving no considerable revenue
from the tax upon distilled spirits,
Those who have given attention TO the
subject, and were in position to obtain
tolerably exact information, fixed the
rate of revenue actually collected upon
liquors at ten cents on the gallon, and
as a plea for a reduction of the tax,
urged the utter impossibility of collect
Ing the two dollars assessed by law.
Our Chamber OF Commerce has declared,
by resolution, the opinion that the tax
should at once be reduced to fifty cents
The motive for fraud would be lessened;
illicit distillation in small way, and
in places where the revenue officers
were not likely to discover, would stop,
and the collection of the tax be rendered
comparatively easy, and in any event
possible.


Notwithstanding such declarations,
and the positive evidence of the failure
of the law, Congress has done nething
beyond the adjustment of the trans.
portation of bonded spirits toward the
better management of this important
source of revenue. The officers, who
have grown rich in the business OF
cheating the Government, sharing the
spoils with the whisky spectators, are
retained, the rate of taxation remains
unchanged, the Government derives
from tie manufacture of distilled Spirits
almost enough revenue to pay the ex-
penses of its collection, and the public
debt grows at the rate of twenty mil
lions month.


In the mean time Congress recon
structs reconstruction, virtually undo
ing enc day what it did the day before;
strings act upon act, provision upon
provision, and seems to plunge into
more inextricable mire with every efoeI
to pull the Southern States ont of the
bog. The Secretary of State divides
his time between schemes Of new con.
quests by purchase and diplomatic cor.
respondeuce apparently as interminable
as Mr.. Dicks memorial, while the Presi
dent talks of peremptory demands OF
the Government of Great Britain, and
fills the imaginations Of Fehian heroes
with intimations of the possibility Of q
war with their hereditary enemy.


We are in pretty condition truly to
buy territory and engage in q costly
foreign war, when, without such spl en-
did opportunities for expenditure, We
can not run the machine" without ad
ding twenty millions a month to the
grand total of an enormous public debt
Before we put on the supreme airs OF
monaI chs, and undertake TO dictate to
the insignificant portion OF man
kind not included within the
limits of the United States
would it not be we'll 20 fix upon a
Substantial financial policy, adjust rev.
enue to expenditure, equslize taxation
recreste the civil governments OF ter
shattered Southern States, and set the
wheels of industry running throughout
the country When this shall have
been done, we can then with some pro-
priety discuss the question whether il
will or will not be better to nego'
tiate differences with other nations, pop
ulate and cultivate the territory VI
have aud mind our own business.