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Spinner's Finance

Spinner's Finance image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
June
Year
1873
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Treasurer General Spinner has come, it appears, to tour conclusión as to the best things to be done. Onu is to pay off the debt that bears interest and let the protested debt wuit until it iscalled for. The second is to squeeze as much revenuo out of the people as we possibly can, and with the surplus pay the debt. The third is that the generation that creates a debt shuuld be made to pay it, no matter wbat its amount. The fonrth is that the proof in the pudding is in the eating. We save $24,385,086 annually in interest alone, and froin March, 1869, to March, 1873, the savings raust amount to no less than $60,000,000 in interest. And after this exhibition of wisdom, General Spinner shows the wit with which he used to dolight the female clerks of the Treasury Department : " .Vil the calculations and figuring that can be iimiif or done cannot be made to prove to my mind the contraiy, any inore thau I could be made f o comprehend by figures how a man may lift liimseli by the waistbaud of his breeclies." The operation that the General refers to is rather diificult; but if Spinner cannot hoist Spinner by h8 waistband, we can hoist him with his own petard. The chicf blessing that the reduction of the dfcbt has worked in tho General's eye is the sa ving of the interest ; he leaves out óf his account honor and honesty, and he says : " The cheapest way to pay a debt " that bears interest is to pay it at the " oarliest day possible." And thereby he confesses himself a repudiator in deferring the payment of the non-interestbearing debt long overduo. We will show him what his policy has oost the nation. He inay disdain politiCiil economy and figures, and yet there are people who believe in figures when tliey are correct. Now, theu, during the four fiscal yèars 1869 to 1873 we imported iu round numbers, exclusively of bullLon : 1870 $161,132,068 1871.... 73,111.(109 1872 ti'5,!)ti2575 1873 [esümated] f0;,0()0,()09 Total in gold $2,2:0,205,732 On which the following duty was paid iri gold. 1K70 $194.538,374 1871 206.270,4 8 lt72 21(i,37ü,28b 1Ö73 [estiioatedi 100,0 .0,000 Total ÍB gold $SU7.179 068 Total ïrunortiition of merchandi&e in four yeaxa paid in gold $2,29O,VC5,732 Total duty tliereon in gold 807,17U,0B8 Total to ue psMkl goM $3.097 ,384,800 Now to pay this aiuount of over three thousan 1 niillions, for which we had to find gold, Mr. Spinner tells us that our best resource' is gi eeubaeks. If thny had boen paid and taken up, paper currency and gold wuukl have been of the same vahit!. The result of our policy has been that we have had to buy froin time to time the above three thousand niillions of gold, for which we paid au average of 15 per cent per annuiu, er in round numbers $iü4,007,()ÜÜ, premium. Thus, then, the account stands : Savcd in interest by redncing trie debt irom .Murch, 18B9, to June, 1873, in round sum .. $60,000,000 Premium p lid on prold lor foreign mercli.iudieo and duty 464,617,000 Unlnnco of whicb the people have been choated and despoiled $4O4,GO7,6OO Theso figures are conelusive to anjbody except General Spinner, who has a contempt for figures, always excepting the graceful figuros of the female

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Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus