Year: 1877

has been here characterized, as the

 undisputed debt, but who object to any arrangement which will get rid of the disputed debt, even though this should be accomplished on pre- cisely the same terms. It would be difficult to see of what advantage it could be, abstractly considered, to the State to have this mass of dis puted debt lying out as q subject of future repreach and contention. As no pecuniary advantage can be pred

 icated of such course, it is said that it is matter of principle. By this we suppose is meant that some moral or legal right would be vio- lated. With the best disposition to eandidly consider every argument made on the subject, we have tried in vain to see how this can be. If the State pays only the debts which it is admitted she ought to pay, the State will not be defrauded; if the bondholders consent to the proposed arrangement, it is not probable that they will complain. The principle of morals involved is one which has never perhaps been reduced to any form by any of the many writers on the subject of morals. As at pres ent presented, it seems to amount to statement that the holders of the disputed bonds are so far Tn the wrong that the State should net have anything to do with them. If it is answered that the State has

 nothing to do with them, and that on the plan proposed the State will only deal with the holders of the undisputed debt, it is replied that that is true, but that THEY propose to recognize the holders of the dis

 puted debt, which can not be per mitted, and that the State shall die tate to her just creditors what kinds of company they shall keep. Of course this is not financial propo- sition at all. As moral proposi- 1t amounts to declaration that the State can not have anything to do with any one who has anything to do with any one whose moral atti- tude the State does not fully ap- prove. 1t is needless. to say that if notion so fastidious were earned out in private life all human busl- ness and intercourse would be at an end. Excessive refinement and end less punctillio in such matters would conduce in the end to injustice: and it may be doubted whether, after so long delay, to pay anything on a debt the justice of which has never been denied, the world would glve us full credit for an invention in morals that would eclipse the mem ory of the most highly esteemed saint in the calendar. The propo- sition, as VIC understand it, is that it IS more just and better for the State to pay of the bonds admitted to be outstanding although they are all offered at one and the same price. 1t must be admitted that it is not easy to answer manifest paradox. If one will assert that the half is more than the whole, there IS very little more to be said. But there is probably no plan of settling the public debt that imagination could devise that could not be objected to on some similar or better grounds. Where the matter of anything is be- yond question, it IS always possible to object to the manner; and by ob- jecting to matters of detail, or mat ters only remotely in question, every possibility is finally exhausted,

 Whether the proposition of Messrs. Adams and Redfleld will be accepted by q majority of the holders of the undisputed debt, is not known to the Board, It is, of course, known that the Board can do nothing more than recommend a proposition. If the Board had a greater power than this, it would feel no disposition to exercise it.

 When the proposition of Adams and Redtield, if acceded to by the bondholders is laid before the Leg islature, it will stand strictly and only on it's intrinsic merits. Nor does the Board regard itself as pre- cluded from recommending any more favorable proposition, if such should be submitted. 1t is distinctly un

 derstood that the proposition of Messrs. Adams and Radfield will he recommended only in default of some better offer. If any patriotic citizen of the State wlll undertake to confer with the bondholders, and will obtain from a majority of them Il more favorable proposition, he will receive from the Board every possi- bic encouragement, and lie will earn the thanks of the people. 1t is of this kind that is need