The proposition to pay bonds in greenbacks becomes futile and fatuous, when it is considered that such an operation would be nothing more than the substitution of greenbacks for bonds, and not a payment of anything. The form of the debt would be changed, but the debt would remain. Of the twenty-five hundred millions which we now owe, whether in greenbacks or bonds, every dollar must be paid, sooner or later, or be ignobly repudiated. By paying the interest of the bonds in coin, instead of greenbacks, the annual increase of the debt to this extent is prevented. But the principal remains to be paid. If this be attempted in greenbacks, it will be by an issue far beyond all the demands of the currency. There will be a deluge of greenbacks. The country must suffer inconceivably under such a dispensation. The interest on the bonds may be stopped by the substitution, but the currency will be depreciated infinitely beyond any such dishonest saving. The country will be bankrupt. Inconvertible paper will overspread the land, to the exclusion of coin or any chance of coin for some time to come. Farewell then to specie payments! Greenbacks will be everywhere. The multitudinous rats that swam the Rhine and devoured Bishop Hatto in his tower were not more destructive. The cloud of locusts described by Milton as “warping on the eastern wind” and “darkening all the land of Nile,” were not more pestilential. I am now brought to the practical question, to which I have already alluded: How the public burdens shall be lightened. Of course, in this work, the Public Faith, if kept sacred, will be a constant and omnipresent agency, powerful in itself, and powerful also in its reinforcement of all other agencies. * * * * * It will not seem trivial, if I insist on systematic economy in the administration of the Government. All needless expenditure must be lopped off. Our swollen appropriations must be compressed. Extravagance and recklessness, so natural during a period of war, must give way to moderation and thrift. All this without any denial of what is just or beneficent. The rule should be economy without niggardliness. Always there must be a good reason for whatever we spend. Every dollar, as it leaves the National Treasury, must be able to exhibit its passport. Doubtless the army and navy can be further reduced without detriment to the public service. Beyond this great saving there should be a constant watchfulness against those schemes of public plunder, great and small, from which the Nation has latterly suffered so much. All these things are so plain as to be little more than truisms. * * * * *