Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1877 — Treasury Exhibit. [ARTICLE]

Treasury Exhibit.

Washington, Nov. 19. ThcTreasurer of the United States, in hia annual report of the operations of the Treasury during tbe last fiscal year, makes the following exhibit regarding tbe receipts and e»pendltures, as compared with the fiscal year ending June 30,*1876. That ending June 30, 1877. snows a decrease in net revenues amounting io $18,481,452, and decrease in net expenditures of $19,799,788. The net revenues for the fiscal year were $269,000,586; net expenditures, s23B,(Wo,oo6— making an increase of funds amounting to $30,340,577. It is observed that while the revenue from customs, lands and miscellaneous sources has decreased year after year since 1873, the revenue derived from internal revenue, so-called, has Increased, the receipts from that source in 1874 having been $102,409,784, and in the fiscal year of 1877, $118,630,407. Tbe total amount of “ unavailable moneys” carried in balances of accounts in the Treasurers’offices, was as follows: June 30, 1876, $29,899,520; June 30, 1877, $29,620,883. The theoiy of public accounts is that the Treasurer of the United States shall be charged upon a warrant of the Secretary, with all the moneys received into the Treasury, and for 4hich, whenever received, he is held accountable until the same are properly disbursed under some appropriation made pursuant to law. It has, however, occurred that, since 1836, the sum of $29,625,833 over and above the amount of public money which has been properly accounted for, has, by reason of a deposit of surBlus revenue with twenty-six States of w Union, by deficit, by default, by theft, in various places, and by failure in depository banks, gone from the custody of the Treasurer, which it seems he cannot, from the nature of the case, account for, ana thereby obtain credit thereior on the books of the Department, and, for the convenience of the operations of the Department, this amount is carried in the accounts as unavailable. The Treasurer thinks there should be legislation authorizing the opening of an “appropriation account” upon the books of the Department in which, under the head of “ unavailable,” the Treasurer may receive credit for the sumsnow and hereafter from time to time becoming unavailable, and that the person, bank, or State properly chargeable may be debited with the various items by warrant upon the account stated by the proper accounting officers of the Treasury. Although tbe monthly debt statement of the Department was never intended to show the condition of the Treasury and the amount and kinds of funds on hand, yet many deductions are sought to be made from time to time, as if that publication gave the liabilities ind assets, and not merely the condition of the debt. The only items of cash in the Treasury which the debt statement Include are the general currency balance and the general coin balance. The currency balance, as it appears in the monthly statement under the term “ cash in Treasury, currency,” is simply the amount of currency that would be left in the Treasury after the payment of all currency demands in full, and also of the item, “cash in Treasury, coin.” There is, in addition, the amounts held tor the re-

demption of Clearing-House certificates and coin certificates, of which the amounts outstanding are noted in the statement, beside which, not mentioned, there are funds to the credit of the disbursing officers for redemption of notes of National Banks failed, m liquidation and reducing circulation, to meet outstanding cheeks and drafts for the benefit of the creditors of National Banks, the balance of the 5 per cent fund, and others. A comparative statement Is given showing in detail, both in coin and currency, the liabilities and assets of the Treasury on Sept 30, 1876 and 1877. These aggregates are as follows: Coin, Sept 30, 1876, $67,586,705; Sept. 30, 1877, $133,585,072. Currency, Sept 30, 1876, $106,137,766; Sept 30, 1877, $110,096,039.

Regarding the long-mooted question whether legal-tender notes deposited for redemption of the circulation of failed, reducing and liquidating banks are held as a separate fund, it may be said that there is no provision of law which requires that such notes should so be held, and, as a fact, they have never been held set apart and distinct from other funds in the Treasury. There is, without doubt, in the various offices and various vaults of the Treasury a sufficient amount of United States notes to redeem all such bank notes if presented simultaneously for redemption, but they are not always In'the vaults of this office where redemption is required to be made. A recapitulation of the silver payments made in pursuance of the act of April 17, 1876, including payments from April 18, 1876, until and including October, 1877, shows an aggregate of 823,156,162 of silver issued for fractional currency redeemed and destroyed, and 813,464,569 of silver issued in lieu of or in exchange for currency, making a total of $36,620,732. Upon an official estimate of $8,083,573 fractional currency lost in circulation there .may be still issued, before the limit of $50,000,OOu’is readied, $10,269,061 in exchange for fractional and $3,110,206 for currency obligations. « . There was a decrease of $27,509,108 in the retirement of legal-tender notes during the year, besides which there was a reduction in the volume of United States paper money very marked, leaving the outstanding circulating paper issues of the Government at $380,627,976 at the close of the fiscal year, being less than at any time since 1862. The volume of legal-tender notes and of fractional currency Is also less than at any time since 1862. There were presented during the year for redemption counterfeits of National Bank notes amounting to $14,563, including denominations from SIOO down to $2; also counterfeit legal-tender notes and fractional currency to the extent of $19,661, including all the denominations of legaltender notes but more of the denomination of S2O than any other. The National Banks have paid duty amounting to $75,762,087 during thirteen calendar years from 1864 to 1877.