Another device is to tax the bonds, when the money was lent on the positive condition that the bonds should not be taxed. This, of course, is to break the contract in another way. It is Repudiation in another form. * * * * * To argue these questions is happily unnecessary, and I allude to them only because I wish to exhibit the loss to the country from such attempts. This can be made plain as a church-door. The total debt of our country on the 1st September, aside from the sixty millions of bonds issued to the Pacific Railway, was $2,475,962,501; and here I mention, with great satisfaction, that since the 1st March last the debt has been reduced $49,500,758. The surplus revenue now accruing is not less than $100,000,000 a year, and will be, probably, not less than $125,000,000 a year, of which large sum not less than $75,000,000 must be attributed to the better enforcement of the laws and the economy now prevailing under a Republican Administration. And here comes the practical point. Large as is our surplus revenue, it should have been more, and would have been more but for the Repudiation menaced by the Democracy. If we look at our bonded debt, we find it is now $2,107,936,300, upon which we pay not less than $124,000,000 in annual interest, the larger part at six per cent., the smaller at five per cent., gold. The difference between this interest and that paid by other powers is the measure of our annual loss. English three per cents. and French fours are firm in the market; but England and France have not the same immeasurable resources that are ours, nor is either so secure in its government. It is easy to see that our debt could have been funded without paying more than four per cent., but for the doubt cast upon our credit by the dishonest schemes of Repudiation. “Payment in Greenbacks” and “Taxation of Bonds” are costly cries. Without these there would have been $40,000,000 annually to swell our surplus revenue. But this sum, if invested in a sinking fund at four per cent. interest, would pay the whole bonded debt in less than thirty years. Such is our annual loss.