AMERICAN FINANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 64, 7 August 1852, Page 1

AMERICAN FINANCE.

(From the Times.) The aunual report of the American Treasury is a statement that may well draw a sigh from every European financier. Though, of course, it is to be received with allowance, as the budget of the United Status' Government, and therefore not including a good deal of public expenditure which here falls to the nation, and there to the several States, still it leaves no doubt of a rapidly progressive prosperity. The total receipts from all sources for the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 1851, amounted to 59,331,909 dollars, which, with the balance in the Treasury on July 1, 1850, of 6,604,544 dollars, gave, as the total available means for the year, 58,917,524 dollars. Of this amount 49,017,687 dollars were received from Customs, 2,352,505 dollars from public lands, and the remainder from miscellaneous sources. The total expenditure for the same fiscal year was 48,005,878, leading a balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1851, of 10,911,645 dollars. The receipts for the last year form the basis of the estimate for the current year ending June 30, 1852, and from the actual receipts of the first quarter there is, we presume, no reason to doubt that the current year will be as productive as the last; but, as the current year starts with a much larger balance, its available means will probably amount to 62,411,645 dollars. The British reader will probably be struck with. the coincidence, or rather the contrast, that, leaving out the balances, the ordinary revenue of the United States counts dollars for our pounds, and is therefore about one-fifth, or 20 per cent., of our own ; and the same reflection will probably occur as he runs through the items of the following estimate for the expenditure of the current year : — Dollars, c. The annual expenditure for the quarter ending September 30, 1850, were 10,937,586 31 The estimated expenditures during the other quarters, from October 1, 1851, to June 30, 1852, are — Civil list, foreign intercourse, and miscellaneous 19,880,280 75 Expenses of collecting the revenue from Customs 1,500,000 Oj Expenses of collecting the revenue from lands 137,409 88

Army proper", &c 6,308,042 88 j Fortifications, ordnance, arming militia, &c 1,675,979 2 Internal improvements, &c 167,457 43 Indian Department 2,631,647 18 Pensions 1,661,503 15 Naval establishment, including dry docks and ocean steam mail contracts 7,659,129 50 Interest on the public debt 4,003,690 70 Purchase of stock of the loan of 1847 1,881,475 79 50,952,902 59 Leaving an estimated balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1852, of 11,458,743 9 As a very large part of this expenditure is of a temporary nature, arising out of recent wars, annexations, and other circumstances of a new country, the expenditure for the fiscal year ending June- 30, 1853, is only estimated at 42,892,299 dollars, which would prohably leave a balance of more than twenty million dollars in the Treasury on July 1, 1853, unless the growing surplus be otherwise disposed of. A good use, however, will probably be found for it in paying off a portion of the United States debt, of which a long contracted ten years' arrear, to the amount of 6,237,931 dollars will become due July 1, 1853. It is suggested, too, that instead of waiting for the falling in of the several loans, it may be expedient to buy all descriptions of United States' stock whenever the opportunity offers. The total amount of these loans is 63,560,395 dollars, or about thirteen millions of our money, and the last loan becomes due July 1, 1889. If, then, the Union wish to clear off all its debt at the cost of having to do so on rather unfavourable terms, j it could, in the present condition of its finances, j wipe out the whole in five or six years ; nay, in less than that, for the annual outgoings are rapidly diminishing. The sum of about fortythree millions, which we have mentioned above as the probable expenditure for the next fiscal year, consists of about thirty-three millions and a half for the ordinary wants of the Government ; the remaining nine millions and a half being the expenditure arising out of the obligations contracted on the acquisition of the new territories, and likely to diminish. Such, then, is the parallel between the pecuniary prospects of the mother country and her well-to-do offspring. The expenditure of the United States leaves a growing surplus, which this year will be about eleven millions, and next year may be more than twenty ; while the debt of the former is about £13,000,000 to our £780,000,000, and may be easily redeemed in five or six years, while ours carries the mind to a period out of all political calculation. The lihsh in America. — In March, 1841, the population of Ireland was 8,175,124; and there can be no doubt that before 1846 it had increased to near 9,000,000. On the 30th March, 1851, the population of Ireland was only 6,515,794, which number has been stiii further reduced through subsequent emigration. The United States Census of 1850 showed a gross population of 23,000,000. According to the statistical tables presented by Mr. William -E. Robinson, M.A., in his lecture delivered on the 22nd July, 1851, before the delegates of some American Universities and Colleges assembled at Clinton, In the State of New York, that mixed population was made up as follows : Irish born 3,000,000 Irish by blood 4,500,000" French and other Celts, by birth or blood 3,000,000 German by birth or blood 5,500,000 Anglo-Saxon, by birth or blood 3,500,000 Coloured free or slave 3,500,000 From these figures it appears that, at the commencement of the present year (1851 1 ), the total number of Irish, by birth or blood, inhabiting either Ireland or the United States, was about 14,000,000; of whom about 6,500,000 were then in Ireland, and the remaining 7,500,000 in the States, where they constituted' the most industrious and enterprising portion of the J active population. It may be fairly estimated

that, before the next decennial census of 185061, the above 14,000,000 of Irish will have increased to about 16,000,000 ; of* whom, should Irish emigration continue to proceed at a rate exceeding a quarter of a million per annum, it is not improbable that about 12,000,000 may be found in the United States, and not more, perhaps, than 4,000,000 in Ireland, including among the latter number most of the impotent poor and the least energetic portion of the Irish people. The United States would thus" become three times as Irish as Ireland. There are already more Irish than in Ireland. New Zealand. — A correspondent, writing from Auckland to the " Sydney Morning Herald" upon the affairs of New Zealand, says, — " If the real and rapid progress of New Zealand were not held in destructive and despotic thrall by the malignant obstinacy of the Colonial Office, it would spring at once, through the joint energy of the native and European races, to a country of unexampled greatness — pastoral, agricultural, and commercial. It would quickly prove its title to be considered the granary and the provision mart of the Southern Pacific ; for with the mere permission from the colonial office dictators, to do that which Heaven has commanded — " increase and multiply and replenish the earth" — vast and valuable tracts of the richest, but as yet desolate, land would be made to yield profuse returns to the hand of toil;. sleek and countless herds would browse upon a>-thousand hills ; wool would be shorn from innumerable flocks; corn would abound in numberless farm-yards ; and the territory become one, not metaphorically but positively, flowing with milk and honey. Alas, that industry should be expelled its shores ; that the soil should be constrained to lie in unproductive idleness ; that privation and poverty should be made to overbear peace and plenty, merely to uphold the fiat of a colonial office ! litox, the CiviLrzEß, — The age of gold and the age of bronze have given place to the age of iron. Iron is your true agent of civilization . So says Mr. Robert Stephenson at Bangor. In sight of theMenaiand Conway tubular bridges, he might feel justified in proclaiming this, though the saying might remind one of the " Nothing like leather" maxim. Yet assuredly iron is a great power in this present age. It is revolutionizing the world. The iron rail and the iron wires of the telegraph have already brought towns so near to each other, that a country has now become but as one vast city. And iron railroads are bringing countries nearer to each other, and binding them into one common interest. "We even hear of an iron bond of union between England and Calcutta, a railway stretching across Europe and Asia Minor, rendering the distance, in point of time, between London and Calcutta, only one week 1 Nor is the proposal a mere chimera ; it is a thing that will be realized, and in our day. Fourteen years will probably see the Calais and Calcutta trains running. Iron will form the road, and iron locomotives the fiery horses to bear the iron carriages freighted with their living loads along the great highway of civilization. We have yet seen but the beginning of the gigantic power of railways. The next generation may see an extension of the Calais and Calcutta line to Pekin, across the centre of Asia. The New York and California Railway will then be " a great fact," for Yankees are no dreamers, but hard, practical, energetic workers, and Asa Whitney's scheme will not remain long upon paper only. But iron is also working away in other directions. Not to speak of iron-bedsteads and iron drawing-room furniture, we have iron steam-ships, iron tubular bridges, iron viaducts, and iron light-houses. The Queen has just ordered an iron ball-room, to be constructed by Bellhouse, of Manchester, for her Highland country seat at Balmoral. Then, have we not seen the' Iron and Crystal Palace of all Nations? There was' the iron house, also built at Manchester, by Fairbairn, for the Sultan of Turkey. We shall haVe iron cottages and furniture of all kind&'sWftp-iron. . boats, iron stools, and iron crockery..- Tire use* , ; • of the metal are endless; and its supples al-'' * ' most inexhaustible. — (Eliza Cook's Journal.), ; \