The United States' Budget will this year show the rather
severe deficit of /6,000,000, produced mainly by the action of Congress in taking off taxes, while the Treasury fears that the deficit of next year may be even greater. The official proposal, therefore, is to impose new taxes calculated to yield /8,000,000, but Congress objects to harass the people just when the monetary crisis has stopped trade and emptied so many workshops. The majority, therefore, suggest a loan as the easier policy, which it is, but also a very dangerous precedent. The new taxes would scarcely begin to draw before the crisis 'will be over, and the slightest evidence of financial cowardice will seriously injure American credit, which rests in no slight degree upon the heroic way in which Congress recently taxed the country as if it wanted to pay off the Debt in this generation. The States would now have the opportunity of trying Sir Rowland Hill's suggestion of resorting to a coal-tax, only that in many States it would be so unjust a premium on the use of wood.
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