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Show and Hie oniy ttJing Hie UoveinuitiH could apply it to was the public debt. But the portions of the public debt which were falling due and payable were limited, and to get rid of the constantly con-stantly accumulating surplus it was found'necessary to offer a premium for Government bonds. Mr. Cleveland thought that the easiest and best way to prevent the annual accumulation of unneeded money in the treasury was to stop taking it from the people. Tifis simple policy would accomplish two good things: It would prevent the constant collection into the Government" Govern-ment" vaults oi'-large amounts of idle money which it had no good use for, and which served as a temptation to extravagance and speculation, and it would relieve the people of that amount of taxation. The present Harrison administration administra-tion followed thai of Mr. Cleveland, and recognizing the propriety of getting get-ting rid of the surplus in the treasury, and preventing the future accumulation accumula-tion of other such surpluses, it addressed ad-dressed itself heroically to the task. And it has accomplished it with a success that fills the country with amazement. The surplus which the Cleveland adminstration turned over to its successor is gone. No doubt about that. And this is not all. The ;I1arrison administration has done its ' work so effective that what was an excess ex-cess of revenues has been changed into in-to a deficit. The treasury is worse than empty and all the sweating mathematicians of the treasury department depart-ment cannot hide the fact. The 4 per cent, bonds, which, more accurately than anything else, guage the credit of the government, and which have sold as high as 130, have fallen to 118, and it is plain to be seen that there is uneasiness un-easiness at Washington. But the whole story is not told yet. Mb. Cleveland's plan for preventing the accumulation of an annual surplus sur-plus in the treasury was to let the money stay in the people's pockets by reducing the taxes. But the Hakkison administration has managed to squander the $00,000,000 inherited from its predecessor and prevent the accumulation of such excesses in the future without reducing thetaxes one dollar. It remits nothing to the people. peo-ple. All the talk bv Reprblican organs about reducing taxes $54,000,000 by cutting down the duties on sugar is deceptive and misleading, for the whole of this sum and more besides, is exacted from the people in the shape of higher duties on and higher prices for other necessaries and comforts. The duty on the article of tin-plate alone takes $15,000,000 from them one-half one-half of which is the result of the increase; in-crease; and if the higher prices the people are paying for other similar necessaries could be computed for this vear they would amount to not less "than $70,000,000, enough to swallow-up swallow-up all the released sugar duties and $16,000,000 besides. |
