Iron County Register

A SHALLOW PRETENSE.

The Republican Excuse for Extravagant Legislation.

The plan outlined by Representative Forney, of Alabama, for the reduction of appropriations by the next congress is encouraging to the extent that it shows an appreciation of the need of retrenchment. This may be a billion-dollar country, as Secretary Foster suggests, but the people will not accept the greatness of our resources as an excuse for unnecessary extravagance.

But when it comes to pointing out where retrenchment is possible the outlook is not so flattering as could be desired.

The mischief done by the Fifty-first congress is in many particulars irremediable, especially so long as we have a republican president and a republican majority in the senate. Many republicans have boasted with great unction that the tariff cannot be reduced for ten years at least. This may turn out to be a delusion; but it is beyond dispute that the reckless legislation of the last congress has committed the country to a vast expenditure of money for years to come. The cost of congress is not to be estimated by the billion of dollars which it appropriated. To put its cost at that sum is to take a most inadequate view of the situation.

Its most pernicious activity was exerted in the passage of general laws, calling for great appropriations at once, but still larger sums for the future.

This remark is particularly applicable to the pension legislation of the last congress. Under previous laws the pension bureau was so conducted that the expenditures were increasing rapidly. New legislation was enacted which will increase pension appropriations to an extent that prudent men shrink from an endeavor to estimate.

An idea of the rate of increase may be had from the statement of Commissioner Raum that over five thousand certificates were recently issued, the first payments on which will amount to nearly six hundred thousand dollars. This rate, if maintained, means an addition of thirty-one million dollars per year to the pension charge, and the work is expected to go on for many years yet. But it is to be observed that the present work is not satisfactory, and is only mentioned as good work for the present force. There is to be an increase in the number of clerks, however, and then the task of giving pensions to everybody may be greatly expedited.

How far the granting of pensions has outrun expectations is shown by the experience of the treasury in the payment of the pensions due on the 4th of the present month. Treasury officials were somewhat embarrassed to make the necessary provision to meet them, as they discovered the commissioner of pensions had estimated the sum needed at nineteen million dollars, when, in point of fact, twenty-six million dollars were needed. The money necessary to meet the drafts was not ready for some days after they were due, and the government paper was saved from dishonor only by the fact that many of these drafts are not presented promptly. This, of course, was foreseen; but a similar incident, we are informed, never happened before in the history of the government.

Meantime, in other matters the treasury gives unmistakable evidence that the "billion-dollar country" has been subjected to demands that strain its resources. After protesting over and over that there would be plenty of money to pay the four and one-half per cent. bonds at maturity, the treasury proceeds to perfect arrangements to extend more than half of them at a reduced interest, incidentally boasting of the high credit which renders this possible. But the credit of the government was not in issue. It was a question of cash, not credit. A claim of having cash enough to pay a note is not supported by proof of credit enough to renew it. At the same time the payment of other appropriations is postponed by quibbles—a common device of debtors who are hard pressed. Such is the unenviable position to which a billion-dollar country has been brought by a billion-dollar congress, and the worst has not yet come.

The next congress will have to retrench wherever retrenchment is possible, but with all that it can do in that direction it will not be possible to keep down appropriations to anything near what they were under the last administration. It will not be practicable to repeal much of the vicious legislation of the last congress, which calls for large sums of money. Small leaks may be stopped here and there, but the big ones are for the present out of reach.

The country will have plenty of leisure in the future to reflect what an expensive luxury is a billion-dollar congress, even to a billion-dollar country.

Louisville Courier-Journal.