About 25 millions of dollars for the future expenditures of the government: and this the estimate and expenditure only seven years ago. Now, three times that amount, and increasing with frightful rapidity.
[CHAPTER CLXXX.]
FINANCIAL WORKING OF THE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE HARD MONEY SYSTEM.
The war of words was over: the test of experiment had come: and the long contest between the hard money and the paper money advocates ceased to rage. The issue of the war with Mexico was as disastrous to the paper money party, as it was to the Mexicans themselves. The capital was taken in each case, and the vanquished submitted in quiet in each case. The virtue of a gold and silver currency had shown itself in its good effects upon every branch of business—upon the entire pursuits of human industry, and above all, in assuring to the working man a solid compensation, instead of a delusive cheat for his day's labor. Its triumph was complete: but that triumph was limited to a home experiment in time of peace. War, and especially war to be carried on abroad, is the great test of currency; and the Mexican war was to subject the restored golden currency of the United States to that supreme test: and here the paper money party—the national bank sound-currency party—felt sure of the victory. The first national bank had been established upon the war argument presented by General Hamilton to President Washington: the second national bank was born of the war of 1812: and the war with Mexico was confidently looked to as the trial which was to show inadequacy of the hard money currency to its exigencies, and the necessity of establishing a national paper currency. Those who had asserted the inadequacy of all the gold and silver in the world to do the business of the United States, were quite sure of the insufficiency of the precious metals to carry on a foreign war in addition to all domestic transactions. The war came: its demands upon the solid currency were not felt in its diminution at home. Government bills were above par! and every loan taken at a premium! and only obtained upon a hard competition! How different from any thing which had ever been seen in our country, or in almost any country before. The last loan authorized (winter of '47-'48) of sixteen millions, brought a premium of about five hundred thousand dollars; and one-half of the bidders were disappointed and chagrined because they could get no part of it. Compare this financial result to that of the war of 1812, during which the federal government was a mendicant for loans, and paid or suffered a loss of forty-six millions of dollars to obtain them, and the virtue of the gold currency will stand vindicated upon the test of war, and foreign war, as well as upon the test of home transactions. The war was conducted upon the hard money basis, and found the basis to be as ample as solid. Payments were regular and real: and, at the return of peace, every public security was above par, the national coffers full of gold; and the government having the money on hand, and anxious to pay its loans before they were due, could only obtain that privilege by paying a premium upon it, sometimes as high as twenty per centum—thus actually giving one dollar upon every five for the five before it was due. And this, more or less, on all the loans, according to the length of time they had yet to run. And this is the crown and seal upon the triumph of the gold currency.
[CHAPTER CLXXXI.]
COAST SURVEY: BELONGS TO THE NAVY: CONVERTED INTO A SEPARATE DEPARTMENT: EXPENSE AND INTERMINABILITY: SHOULD BE DONE BY THE NAVY, AS IN GREAT BRITAIN: MR. BENTONS SPEECH: EXTRACT.
Mr. Benton. My object, Mr. President, is to return the coast survey to what the law directed it to be, and to confine its execution, after the 30th of June next, to the Navy Department. We have now, both by law and in fact, a bureau for the purpose—that of Ordnance and Hydrography—and to the hydrographical section of this bureau properly belongs the execution of the coast survey. It is the very business of hydrography; and in Great Britain, from whom we borrow the idea of this bureau, the hydrographer, always a naval officer, and operating wholly with naval forces, is charged with the whole business of the coast survey of that great empire. One hydrographer and with only ten vessels until lately, conducts the whole survey of coasts under the laws of that empire—surveys not confined to the British Isles, but to the British possessions in the four quarters of the globe—and not merely to their own possessions, but to the coasts of all countries with which they have commerce, or expect war, and of which they have not reliable charts—even to China and the Island of Borneo. Rear Admiral Beaufort is now the hydrographer, and has been for twenty years; and he has no civil astronomer to do the work for him, or any civil superintendent to overlook and direct him. But he has somebody to overlook him, and those who know what they are about—namely, the Lords of the Admiralty—and something more besides—namely, the House of Commons, through its select committees—and by which the whole work of this hydrographer is most carefully overlooked, and every survey brought to the test of law and expediency in its inception, and of economy and speed in its execution. I have now before me one of the examinations of this hydrographer before a select committee of the House of Commons, made only last year, and which shows that the British House of Commons holds its hydrographer to the track of the law—confines him to his proper business—and that proper business is precisely the work which is required by our acts of 1807 and 1832. Here is the volume which contains, among other things, the examination of Rear Admiral Beaufort [showing a huge folio of more than a thousand pages]. I do not mean to read it. I merely produce it to show that, in Great Britain, the hydrographer, a naval officer, is charged with the whole business of the coast survey, and executes it exclusively with the men and ships of the navy; and having produced it for this purpose, I read a single question from it, not for the sake of the answer, but for the sake of the facts in the question. It relates to the number of assistants retained by the rear admiral, and the late increase in their number. The question is in these words: