, 1896, the revenues of
the Government from all sources amounted to $409,475,408.78, while its
expenditures were $434,678,654.48, or an excess of expenditures over
receipts of $25,203,245.70. In other words, the total receipts for the
three fiscal years ending June 30, 1896, were insufficient by
$137,811,729.46 to meet the total expenditures.

Nor has this condition since improved. For the first half of the present
fiscal year, the receipts of the Government, exclusive of postal
revenues, were $157,507,603.76, and its expenditures, exclusive of
postal service, $195,410,000.22, or an excess of expenditures over
receipts of $37,902,396.46. In January of this year, the receipts,
exclusive of postal revenues, were $24,316,994.05, and the expenditures,
exclusive of postal service, $30,269,389.29, a deficit of $5,952,395.24
for the month. In February of this year, the receipts, exclusive of
postal revenues, were $24,400,997.38, and expenditures, exclusive of
postal service, $28,796,056.66, a deficit of $4,395,059.28; or a total
deficiency of $186,061,580.44 for the three years and eight months
ending March 1, 1897. Not only are we without a surplus in the Treasury,
but with an increase in the public debt there has been a corresponding
increase in the annual interest charge, from $22,893,883.20 in 1892, the
lowest of any year since 1862, to $34,387,297.60 in 1896, or an increase
of $11,493,414.40.

It may be urged that even if the revenues of the Government had been
sufficient to meet all its ordinary expenses during the past three
years, the gold reserve would still have been insufficient to meet the
demands upon it, and that bonds would necessarily have been issued for
its repletion. Be this as it may, it is clearly manifest, without
denying or affirming the correctness of such a conclusion, that the debt
would have been decreased in at least the amount of the deficiency, and
business confidence immeasurably strengthened throughout the country.

Congress should promptly correct the existing condition. Ample revenues
must be supplied not only for the ordinary expenses of the Government,
but for the prompt payment of liberal pensions and the liquidation of
the principal and interest of the public debt. In raising revenue,
duties should be so levied upon foreign products as to preserve the home
market, so far as possible, to our own producers; to revive and increase
manufactures; to relieve and encourage agriculture; to incre