REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1866.

The following is the report of Secretary McCulloch for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866:

WASHINGTON, Thursday, Oct. 11, 1866.

The fiscal year ending on the 30th of June, 1866, was one of great material pros perity to the Treasury Department. The respective balances for the commencement and conclusion of the year were as follows:

Cash on hand June 30, 1865

Cash on hand June 30, 1866.

Net gain..

8838.209 15 130,669,815 19

$129,811,506 04

If the gold in the national vaults, estimated in the foregoing figures at par, were expressed in currency figures, it would show a balance on hand at the conclusion of the year of over $160,000,000.

The receipts and expenditures of the United States for the fiscal year are as follows

From these figures it appears that the receipts and expenditures of the year 1965

393

The war

But this excess of thirty-seven millions of receipts does not show the capacity of the country to pay off its debts, for it all occurred in the last few months. expenses of the first quarter were $165,000,000; during the last quarter they had dwindled to $12,000,000. The expenditures of the War Department during the coming year would be over $240,000,000, less than that of the past year, were it not for the Equalization Bounties Bill.

As compared with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1865, we find in the past year an increase of receipts from Internal Revenue of $100,000,000, and of customs of $95,000,000; while there has been a diminution of expenses for war of over $750,000,000, and for the Navy of $80,000,000. The a deficiency of $619,000,000: six months after that time, the year ending June 30, year ending December 31, 1865, showed 1866, showed an excess of receipts over expenditures of nearly $37,000,000.

PUBLIC DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Abstract statement, as appears from the books and Treasurers' returns in the Treasury Department, on the 1st of September, 1st of October and the 1st of Novem ber, 1866, comparatively :

DEBT BEARING COIN INTEREST.

64

66

of 1867 and 1868.
of 1881
5.20's

Navy Pension Fund

15,480,220 11,057,640 10,896,980

$143.449,047 $437,252,205 $128.680 775

$2,729,314,836 $2,701,550,709 $2,681 635,966 132,631,668 128,213,767 130,326,96

$2,595,683,168 $2,573,336,941 $2,551,310,006

The following statement shows the amount of coin and currency separately at the

dates in the foregoing table:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT.-INSTRUCTIONS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

As the regulations of the Treasury Department relative to United States securities are imperfectly understood by the public, a revision of these regulations has just been made by the Register of the Treasury. New instructions are added, and forms are furnished which will render easy the correspondence with the Department on the various subjects growing out of this now world-wide interest. The exchange, the transfer, the conversion of bonds, the payment of interest, the assignment of stocks by heirs, by executors, &c., and this in foreign countries and in various tongues, require that the rules and forms adopted for security of both holder and government should be known. We copy from it the instructions to correspondents with the Treasury office:

"Letters relating to redemption of public securities, the conversion of 7 3-10 Trea sury notes, or the exchange of coupon bonds for registered certificates, should be ad dressed to the Secretary of the Treasury. Letters relating to the transfer of registered stock, or payment of interest on the same, should be addressed to the Register of the Treasury. The transfer books are closed for thirty days previous to the day for payment of dividends, and stockholders desiring the place of payment changed must give notice to the Register one month at least before the day of payment. When bonds are sent for transfer state where interest is to be made payable, and always inclose stock of different loans in. separate letters. When specifying the different loans, or referring to the interest, name the amount of stock, and describe the loan by the date of the act of Congress authorizing it. Powers of attorney for the assignment of United States stock, and assignments, must be properly filled before transmission to the Register, as no blanks can be filled in his office. Powers of attorney to draw interest should be addressed to the First Auditor of the Treasury."

COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW.

Public debt statement-Debt should not be paid too rapidly-Speculation in Wall-street-Un easeness in commercial circles-Course of gold-Treasure movement-Prices of governments —Railroad earnings, etc., etc.

The November statement of the public debt, which has just been issued, is a very satisfactory one in many respects; but it is of especial interest as bringing prominently forward the two important questions respecting it-first, its con solidation, and second, its pressure.

First, as to consolidation. The obligations of the Treasury, as the report shows, amount to 2,551 millions. Of these more than half are consolidated into long bonds, the aggregate of which is 1,343 millions. The rest consists of 417 millions of currency, not redeemable; and about 926 millions of short obligations, which are redeemable at various times, 50 millions being due on demand, 200 millions in the summer and autumn of 1867, and 526 millions in June and July of 1868. It is with these 926 millions of short-date paper that we have chiefly to deal in carrying on the work of consolidation, and the entire mass will have to be got out of the way in one year and eight months from this time. After this general survey, it is superfluous to say that an immense financial task spreads itself out before us. The amount we have to fund is greater than was ever funded in the same interval by Great Britain in the most expensive period of her wars with Napoleon; it is far greater than was ever funded in two years by any nation in the world. Could we not look back on the last year of the war, and remember that we then raised 1,800 millions, we might well be appalled

at the prospect before us. But with such past proofs of what we can do and bear, with our experience of the vast recuperative expansiveness of our resources we need have no fear as to our success in the work of providing for our maturing obligations in the next 18 or 20 months.

Second, as to the pressure of the debt on the resources of the country, this might arise from its absorbing floating capital, and thus preventing this capital from becoming productive in the industrial activity of our people. In the funding of our floating debt, however, this cannot occur, as the process involves merely the changing of the form of the obligation, and the converting of one investment into another. There are, however, other ways in which the public debt might exert an undue pressure on the capital of the country. For example, there are cases where over-taxation is resorted to to pay off a public debt. To the farmer it is impoverishment, if not ruin, to consume his seed-corn. But the active capital of any country is, as it were, the seed corn of the field of finance, it is the germ which will fructify and bring forth crops of future capital. To take from a farmer, or a manufacturer, or a merchant, by taxation, such a part of his annual returns as impairs his working capital, is to mutilate his wealthproducing faculties, and the process, if extended over an entire country, will necessarily check its growth in wealth. Thus a small aggregate of excessive taxation may in a short time destroy ten times as much capital as it brings into the Treasury. Let us not be misunderstood. We do not object to the liquidation of our debt as quickly as possible. The point on which we insist is, that it is very bad policy to tax ourselves for this purpose so heavily as to paralyse or maim our productive powers, to depress any of our great industrial interests, or to diminish the volume of any of those streams of capital which the mighty productive springs of wealth are constantly pouring into the reservoir of the national resources. From what has been said it is evident that we do not regard with much favor the extravagant predictions which are current, of our paying off the debt in one or two decades of years. We can never enrich a nation by impoverishing its individual citizens, but we can as truly diminish the pressure of a burden, when we give more strength to the shoulders that bear it, as when we lessen the burden itself. It has been well observed, that the pressure of a national debt is not to be estimated by the aggregate amount of the principal, but by the annual interest which has to be paid upon it, and by the proportion these payments bear to the aggregate incomes of the whole people. In this point of view we have always regarded the annual interest of our debt as a matter that should on no account be ever omitted. For some reason, which we are at a loss to discover, the omission has been allowed for a few months past, and it has justly given rise to some very natural public complaints.

In the report of the debt for last month, as our readers will see by consulting it, there are several particulars of a very gratifying character, such as the cancelling of nearly 16 millions of greenback and compound legal tenders, the disappearance of the temporary loan from the schedule, the emission of a new series of long bonds intended to form the nucleus of our consolidated debt, and the vigor with which the conversion of Seven-thirties into long bonds has been conducted by the financial agents of the Treasury. On these and other related topics we may have something to say hereafter. At present we will only call attention

once more to the needless enlargement of the coin balance in the Treasury. A considerable part of this gold might be disposed of with equal saving to the Treasury and advantage to the people.

The leading topic of discussion in Wall-street is the current speculation in the stock market and elsewhere, which as yet shows very few immediate signs of abatement. Its causes are still so active that we can scarcely forecast the time when the inevitable reaction will set in. Among the chief of these causes we may mention the efforts of the cliques of capitalists which control and manipu. late almost all the leading securities on the list, after having bought up for that purpose a large proportion of the outstanding shares; secondly, the mischievous and morbid ease in money, which permits these cliques to raise on favorable terms the immense sums they require to carry out their projects; thirdly, the presence of a large number of outside speculators eager to purchase, consisting of men from the West, the South, and indeed from almost all parts of the country, most of whom are intent on buying stocks, in the full confidence that what is bought to-day will sell at a higher price to-morrow. At present, as the money market is tranquil and no adverse forces oppose the current of popular opinion, the tide of inflation and of advancing prices tends continually towards that eulminating highest point at which the reaction will begin. rates of loans and discounts during the month:

The following are the

The most notable feature of the business of the month has been the develop. ment of a vague feeling of apprehension in mercantile circles. It would be difficult to account for this new phase of affairs upon any definite grounds. Perhaps it may be traceable chiefly to a disappointment which has certainly been experienced among merchants in the interior as to the character of the fall business. The purchases of the Western jobbers during the early part of the season were quite liberal, based upon an expectation of a good demand resulting from a plentiful harvest. They now report that the demand from the retail dealers is limited; and that owing to the high prices at which they have to offer merchandise, they find it impossible to do an average amount of business. At the same time, there are complaints of difficulty in making collections, the result of which has appeared in the interior jobbers having to request renewals of their maturing notes. The obvious explanation of these symptoms is that the high prices of goods are at last compelling a sharp curtailment of consumption. This phase of business has not been unanticipated among merchants and manufacturers. On the contrary, its appearance has been looked for with anxiety, as the period at which the inevitable test of the soundness of the present condition of affairs must be applied. They have taken the very rational view that so long as consumers would take the ordinary amount of goods at the current prices