## 20 July 1867. N. 1247.

### Finance of the American States. (VonGeorge Walker, Springfield Massachusetts gegen den Standard Correspondent )  Zusatz von Marx. Schließen (Loanable Capital of the West.)

In the New York Financial (nicht Commercial) Chronicle of April 27, 1867 carefully prepared table on the indebtedness of the 36 States composing the Union, in 1860 and 1866. The figures are derived from the latest State reports, and are official. Total of these debts in 1866 = 352,194,290$, but in 1860:$255,839,769; increase only during the 6 years within which the war occurred of $96,354,521. In the 3 largest States of the West – Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the aggregate debt was reduced in that period from 37 to 31 millions, and in Pennsylvania, after New York, the most populous state of the Union, reduced 2 millions. The largest increase was in the rich States of Massachusetts (18 millions), Connecticut (10 mill.), New York (171/2 mill.) Hier und the other North Eastern States the greatest stimulus given by the war to manufactures, and other productive industry, and in them, consequently, the largest boundies bounties paid to voluntary volunteers, and most voluntary monetary relief furnished to the families of the absent soldiers. In the West, no considerable bounties were paid, and no debts, on account of them, could therefore be created. The State of New York has just published a return on its indebtedness, embracing the State debts, and the debts of counties, cities, towns and villages within it. State Debt now$51,753,082, but of this 34,182,975$existed before the war and more than 18 mill. of it represents the costs of the Erie canal, a gigantic work of internal improvement, nearly 400 miles in length, which has existed for 40 years, and has contributed many times its cost to the wealth of the State. Interest on it defrayed by the tolls of the canal, paid by the whole inland commerce between the West and East. The county, city, town, and village debts$85,675,645; of this $41,927,998 created for bounties and other war purposes; residue grown out of internal improvements, roads, bridges, waterworks, railways, schoolhouses, almshouses, prisons, asylums for the infirm, hospitals, all built by the help of the municipalities; debts temporarily created for them. Greater part of them only municipal guarantees; no burden whatever, on account of them, falling on the people. Total Debt of New York, alles zusammen, less than$ 140 mill. Population of New York nearly 4 mill. that of the late loyal states about 24 Mill. Southern states had never great local debts, weil no improvements. If the State and local debt of the whole loyal North on so large a scale as those of New York = 850 $mill. Aber die population of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois 51/2 mill., their aggregate state debt: 31 mill. The population of New York is 3,880,000 und its State debt 51 mill., more than twice as large as that of these Western States per capita. The disparity of local indebtedness noch grösser, weil in den new agricultural states not so many municipal bodies capable of creating debts as in the older and richer states in the East, and very few of them have an established credit. Their wealth is chiefly inland, and of this much is unimproved. No loan fund in the West to make the advances necessary to create debts. Little banking capital (proportionally), no savings’ banks, few insurance or trust company companies; and private capitalists can do better than lend their money on county or city bonds. To a very large degree, the ordinary hand to mouth business of that section is done on Eastern capital; and there is certainly no local capital which can have been immobilised in the manner supposed. Their absolute inability to borrow must, therefore, have kept the Western local bodies from contracting considerable debts. The total bank capital of the Union is 420 millions; and all of this is invested in Federal Bonds, and, therefore, the loanable capital which they control must come from the people in the form of deposits, and from their circulation of 300 millions. Of this bank capital, New York has 116 millions, the 6 New England States 145 millions, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey 60 millions; while the 12 Western and Border StatesOhio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Nebraska, Colorado, with a population of nearly 12 mill., have only 68 mill. of banking capital. The savings’ banks of the |155 East also hold a very large fund, much of which available for local loans. The savings’ bank of New York$ 141 mill., of Massachusetts 67 mill. $, the other North Eastern States, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, hold proportionate amounts. Mit exceptions, here and there, z.B. 8 or 9 mill.$ in California, savings’ banks are unknown in the U. St. The savings banks of the West are her broad acres of cultivated land; and the only deposits of its people the seed, the growing crops, the horses, the meat cattle, the hogs, and the farming implements, with which the land was stocked.

Nearly the whole loanable capital of the Union is held in the Eastern und middle States, und no appreciable part of their capital is invested in the local debts of the West. Daher kann die indebtedness (State und Local) der U. St. not exceed $650 mill. Added to Federal Debt, as shown by the June statement, of 2515 mill.$, the total public debt of the American people would be 3,165 3165 mill. \$, a sum which does not much exceed the anticipated amount of the Federal Debt alone when the war was ended. Dagegen schreibt der Standard Kerl von 4 4000, und probably nearer 5000 millions.