Year: 1878

FRUITS or ECONOAY.


The bankruptcies, failures and hard times
of the past four years have forced the Amer
ican people to study and practice economy.
The fruits of this economy when seen and
gathered into some Of the grand totals are
simply wonderful. In the first place there
has been reduction of ninety millions per
annum in the expenses of the General Gov.
eminent during the three years ending June
80, 1878, over the three years ending June 80,
1875. Some of this reduction has been un-
wisely made at partisan dictation, but most
of it has been legitimate, at the demand OF
the people of all parties During the same
time, the past three years, there has been up
wards of 800, ,00O, 900 of the national debt
extinguished with its load of annual interest.
Add to this account the millions saved by re-
funding our debt at lower interest rate and we
shall see what an enormous load has 'been
lifted from the nations shoulders. It was
necessary that this should he done. for our
revenues from customs have been falling con-
,inually with the decrease of imports. Though
taxes and duties have been reduced, expenses
have been still more reduced, 80 that we have
greeted the usual monthly statement of re.
duction of the nations debt.


What has been done by the nation has been
done also by every State, county, city and
town government In a table of very recent
date we observe that of the thirty-eight States
now in the Union, fifteen of them were virtu-
ally without any debt, while of those having
the largest debt several of them were in the
way of rapid extinction. This is notably
true of Massachusetts, New York and Penn
sylvania. Only some of the Southern States
are in a bad way, and those do not seem to
care or try to improve their condition and
credit. The measure of popular economy
has not been merely to reduce expenses in the
same proportion as taxes and duties, but be-
yond that, 50 that debts have been extinguish-
ed during hard times more rapidly than they
were created during good times. What is
true of pubic and municipal debts is equally
true OF private debts. The past few years OF
hard times have witnessed the extinction of
more private debts than any equal period in
our history. We do not now speak of bank
ruptcy and failures, but of the honest pay
ment of debt, principal and interest. Com
pared with such payments the losses by fail
ure have been very small. There Is no way
to get at the amount of the reduction in pri-
vate Indebtedness that has taken place, but
we are satisfied that it is much greater than
all other reductions combined. Our people
have lost sight of what has been achieved by
economy in looking altogether upon that
other picture. the reduced value OF property
that remains to them. Let it be remembered
that in all this rapid decline of prices for the
past four years there has been no loss of &C
tual wealth. Our houses and farms, our stock
and machinery, our gold and silver, every
form of substantial wealth, has increased. 1t
is an abuse of terms TO assert that We have
been growing poorer. while we never in
creased in actual wealth more rapidly than
during the past year. While values have de-
creased on an average 100 per cent. during
four years past, there has been scarcely 10
per cent. decrease of our assessable wealth.
This great discrepancy must 60 to the &C.
count of economy and industry, and shows
US that production and saving never bore
more generous fruits in any period OF our
national history.