HOW AMERICA IS PAYING OFF HER NATIONAL DEBT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 112, 12 May 1881, Page 4

HOW AMERICA IS PAYING OFF HER NATIONAL DEBT.

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Says the London "Spectator": — " The American people, half ruioed by their civil war, insisted on payiog tff instead of bearing their debt, and amid the most terrible temptations adhered to that resolve with an unswerving persistence which throws a new light upon the future of democracy. They were utterly unused alike to debt and to sharp taxation. They were for a time doubtful if they bad succeeded to their war. They were compelled to pass through a oycte of depression unparalleled in their annalf, depression amid which every one felt poor, and it was gravely stated on competent authority that every western farm was more or less mortgaged, and workmen in : the great centres not only talked Socialism but fought for it, and the great feeder of the reiources of the natioo, the marvellous immigration from Europe, came practically to an end. The people, however, made up their minds, end they taxed themselves wholesale, as if self-flagellation titilla-

ted thea>, and with one notable exception, that of the income tax, they bore their heavy impoßts without flinohiPf. No doubt they WBre helped by the national feeliog entertained even by (hose who indulge, tbat alcohol ii inse an ovil thing, by the rooted prejudice i in favor of bigb tariffs and by the national carelessness about ihe oott of certain luxuries— no other people in the world would bear the western price ' for good boots and gloves— but their resolution to pay rather tban that their defendants should pay had in U a soperb pride, They held on, devoted a" surplus 80 per cent, higher than their whole taxation /before the war to the redemption of debf, voted down fell repudiators by crushing minorities— for tbe craze about *he * dollar of our fathers ' wee honeßt enough — «nd finally reached their present financial positiciK More than a third of their debt ii paid, their in'erest next year will be adder £18,000,000 a year (£17,8O0,OCO), or i»y two-thirds of the debt of Great 'Britain ; and the Secretary of the Treasury, while proposing to sweep away all inland duties except those ori .alcohol and tobacco, expects to place a vast refunding loan at from 3 to 3| per cent. The half-ruined people ol 1865;' with ibeir consols at 48, and an irrsdeemable paper currency fluctuating at 2 per cent., iv an hoar 4 have, in 1880 tbe credit of Great Britain, and could raise £300,000,000 for a warji There never wbs such a financial triumph in the history of a nation, or 0)0 which reflected greater credit on its authors. 7 '