Bonds for the sinking fund $74,371,200.00
Fractional currency for the sinking fund 109,001.05
Loan of February, 1861 7,418,000.00
Ten-forties of 1864 2,016,150.00
Five-twenties of 1862 18,300.00
Five-twenties of 1864 3,400.00
Five-twenties of 1865 37,300.00
Consols of 1865 143,150.00
Consols of 1867 959,150.00
Consols of 1868 337,400.00
Texan indemnity stock 1,000.00
Old demand, compound-interest, and other notes 18,330.00
And to the increase of cash in the Treasury 14,637,023.93
______________
100,069,404.98
The requirements of the sinking fund for the year amounted to
$90,786,064.02, which sum included a balance of $49,817,128.78, not
provided for during the previous fiscal year. The sum of $74,480,201.05
was applied to this fund, which left a deficit of $16,305,873.47. The
increase of the revenues for 1881 over those of the previous year was
$29,352,901.10. It is estimated that the receipts during the present
fiscal year will reach $400,000,000 and the expenditures $270,000,000,
leaving a surplus of $130,000,000 applicable to the sinking fund and the
redemption of the public debt.
I approve the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury that
provision be made for the early retirement of silver certificates and
that the act requiring their issue be repealed. They were issued in
pursuance of the policy of the Government to maintain silver at or near
the gold standard, and were accordingly made receivable for all customs,
taxes, and public dues. About sixty-six millions of them are now
outstanding. They form an unnecessary addition to the paper currency,
a sufficient amount of which may be readily supplied by the national
banks.
In accordance with the act of February 28, 1878, the Treasury Department
has monthly caused at least two millions in value of silver bullion to
be coined into standard silver dollars. One hundred and two millions of
these dollars have been already coined, while only about thirty-four
millions are in circulation.
For the reasons which he specifies, I concur in the Secretary's
recommendation that the provision for coinage of a fixed amount each
month be repealed, and that hereafter only so much be coined as shall be
necessary to supply the demand.
The Secretary advises that the issue of gold certificates should not
for the present be resumed, and suggests that the national banks may
properly be forbidden by law to retire their currency except upon
reasonable notice of their intention so to do. Such legislation would
seem to be justified by the recent action of certain banks on the
occasion referred to in the Secretary's report.
Of the fifteen millions of fractional currency still outstanding, only
about eighty thousand has been redeemed the past year. The suggestion
that this amount may properly be dropped from future statements of the
public debt seems worthy of approval.
So also does the suggestion of the Secretary as to the advisability of
relieving the calendar of the United States courts in the southern
district of New York by the transfer to another tribunal of the numerous
suits there pending against collectors.
The revenue from customs for the past fiscal year was $198,159,676.02,
an increase of $11,637,611.42 over that of the year preceding. One
hundred and thirty-eight million ninety-eight thousand five hundred and
sixty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents of this amount was collected at
the port of New York, leaving $50,251,113.63 as the amount collected
at all the other ports of the country. Of this sum $47,977,137.63 was
collected on sugar, melado, and molasses; $27,285,624.78 on wool and its
manufactures; $21,462,534.34 on iron and steel and manufactures thereof;
$19,038,665.81 on manufactures of silk; $10,825,115.21 on manufactures
of cotton, and $6,469,643.04 on wines and spirits, making a total
revenue from these sources of $133,058,720.81.
The expenses of collection for the past year were $6,419,345.20, an
increase over the preceding year of $387,410.04. Notwithstanding the
increase in the revenue from customs over the preceding year, the gross
value of the imports, including free goods, decreased over $25,000,000.
The most marked decrease was in the value of unmanufactured wool,
$14,023,682, and in that of scrap and pig iron, $12,810,671. The value
of imported sugar, on the other hand, showed an increase of $7,457,474;
of steel rails, $4,345,521; of barley, $2,154,204, and of steel in bars,
ingots, etc., $1,620,046.
Contrasted with the imports during the last fiscal year, the exports
were as follows:
Domestic merchandise $883,925,947
Foreign merchandise 18,451,399
_____________
Total 902,377,346
Imports of merchandise 642,664,628
_____________
Excess of exports over imports of merchandise 259,712,718