People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1895 — THE BOND SALE SCANDAL. [ARTICLE]

THE BOND SALE SCANDAL.

The Leading Democratic Paper of th, Country Denounces It. The folly of the new bond contract now that its terms are published, is almost incredible. The resources of our country are immeasurably greater than those oi France or England. Yet the administration has based its bargain with the bankers upon the assumption that 3% per cent is the lowest interest rate at which we can expect to borrow money, when French rentes and British consols are everywhere deemed desirable investments at 2‘/ 2 per cent. Our own , 4 per cents with twelve years to run are eagerly sought foi investments at 110 and above, which would make these new bonds worth about 119. Yet the treasury has agreed to sell sixty odd millions of them at about 104. The treasury thus consents to a bargain which puts us as a nation upon a credit basis scarcely bettei than that of a South American republic. It consents to pay a rate of interest which, if it were applied to British or French securities, would breed instant panic. In addition to this the government

has placed itself helplessly in the hands of this grinding syndicate for eight months to come. It has agreed that it will sell no bonds to anybody between now and next October without giving the syndicate the option of taking them. It is a bad bargain and a fooiih one from beginning to end. It throws away or more at the outset. It permanently impairs the national credit. It threatens to make further borrowing to meet the emergencies impossible upon any reasonable terms. It is no wonder that when such a bargain was to be made the negotiation was conducted behind closed doors, and that an effort was made, even after the contract was concluded, and despite the foolish denial of Secretary Carlisle, to keep its terms secret. The transaction was scandalous. But for the high respectability of the men engaged in it one. might almost say that the government had been buncoed. —New York World.