duct. It is this cool deliberation, I say, which renders his crimes more horrible, and his character more atrocious.

When, my lords, the Board of Directors received the advices which Mr. Hastings thought proper to transmit, though unfurnished with any other materials to form their judgment, they expressed very strongly their doubts, and properly ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of the alleged disaffection of the Begums, declaring it, at the same time, to be a debt which was due to the honor and justice of the British nation. This inquiry, however, Mr. Hastings thought it absolutely necessary to elude. He stated to the council, in answer, "that it would revive those animosities that subsisted between the Begums and the nabob [Asuph Dowlah], which had then subsided. If the former were inclined to appeal to a foreign jurisdiction, they were the best judges of their own feeling, and should be left to make their own complaint." All this, however, my lords, is nothing to the magnificent paragraph which concludes this communication. "Besides," says he, "I hope it will not be a departure from official language to say, that the majesty of justice ought not to be approached without solicitation. She ought not to descend to inflame or provoke, but to withhold her judgment until she is called on to determine." What is still more astonishing, is, that Sir John Macpherson, who, though a man of sense and honor, is rather Oriental in his imagination, and not learned in the "Sublime and Beautiful" from the immortal leader of this prosecution, was caught by this bold, bombastic quibble, and joined in the same words, "that the majesty of justice ought not to be approached without solicitation." But, my lords, do you, the judges of this land, and the expounders of its rightful laws, do you approve of this mockery, and call it the character of justice, which takes the form of right to excite wrong? No, my lords, justice is not this halt and miserable object; it is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod; it is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason, and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay! No, my lords. In the happy reverse of all this, I turn from the disgusting caricature to the real image! Justice I have

now before me august and pure! The abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings of men!-where the mind rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where her favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate; to hear their cry and to help them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic, from her mercy; venerable, from her utility; uplifted, without pride; firm, without obduracy; beneficent in each preference; lovely, though in her frown!

On that justice I rely: deliberate and sure, abstracted from all party purpose and political speculation; not on words, but on facts. You, my lords, who hear me, I conjure, by those rights which it is your best privilege to preserve; by that fame which it is your best pleasure to inherit; by all those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature, our controlling rank in the creation. This is the call on all to administer to truth and equity, as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, with the most exalted bliss possible or conceivable for our nature; the selfapproving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world! My lords, I have done.

JOHN SHERMAN

THE FINANCIAL SITUATION

[John Sherman, orator, financier, and lawyer, was born at Lancaster, Ohio, in 1823. He received an academic education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar at twenty-one. He early joined the Whig party, and was a delegate to the national Whig conventions in 1848 and 1852. He took part in the organization of the Republican party; and presided over the first Ohio Republican convention. He was a representative in Congress from 1855-61, and a candidate for speaker in 1859-60. He held a seat in the Federal Senate in 1861, in 1866, and 1872. Under President Hayes he was secretary of the treasury from 1877 to 1881. Entering the Senate again in 1881 he was reelected in 1886 and in 1892. In several Republican conventions he was a prominent candidate for President. He was secretary of state in 1897, but failing health compelled him to resign in 1898, after fifty years of public service. It was due to him that the resumption of specie payment was effected in 1879, and the national credit thus maintained. He died in Washington in 1900. The speech that follows is an expression of his views regarding President Cleveland's financial policy, and was delivered in the United States Senate in 1895.]

THE

HE President, in his annual message to Congress, confined himself to two important subjects, one our foreign relations and the other the condition of our national finances.

While Congress has heartily, perhaps too hastily, but with entire unanimity, supported him in maintaining the interests and honor of our country in the field of diplomacy, it has not and will not approve his recommendations on the more important subject of our financial policy and especially of our currency. He proposes a line of public policy that will produce a sharp contraction of our currency, add greatly to the burden of existing debts, and arrest the progress of almost every American industry which now competes with foreign productions.

The President is supported in these views by Mr. Carlisle, his able secretary of the treasury, in his report to Congress. It is with diffidence I undertake to controvert their opinions; but my conviction that they are in error is so strong that I hope the strength of the facts I will submit to the Senate will convince it that the true line of public policy is to supply the government with ample means to meet current expenditures and to pay each year a portion of the public debt. The gold reserve provided for the redemption of United States notes can then be easily maintained without cost except the loss of interest on the gold in the treasury, but with a saving of interest on United States notes and treasury notes of five times the interest lost by the gold held in reserve. A vastly greater benefit than saving interest is secured to our people by a national paper currency at par with coin supported by the credit of the United States and redeemed on demand in coin at the treasury in the principal city of the United States.

The only difficulty in the way of an easy maintenance of our notes at par with coin is the fact that during this administration the revenues of the government have not been sufficient to meet the expenditures authorized by Congress. If Congress had provided necessary revenue, or if the President and Mr. Carlisle had refused to expend appropriations not mandatory in form, but permissive, so as to confine expenditures within receipts, they would have had no difficulty with the reserve. This would have been a stalwart act in harmony with the President's character and plainly within his power.

All appropriations which are not provided to carry into effect existing law are permissive, but not mandatory, and his refusal to expend money in excess of the revenues of the government would not only be justified by public policy, but would have been heartily approved by the people of the United States. He knew as well as any one that since the close of the Civil war to the date of his inauguration the expenditures of the government had been less than its receipts. I have here a table which shows the receipts and expenditures each year from 1866 to 1893.

From this official statement it appears that each and every year during that long period there was a surplus,

which was applied to the reduction of the public debt bearing interest.

The President, in his recent annual message, complains that the law of October 6, 1890, known as the McKinley Act, was "inefficient for the purposes of revenue." That law, though it largely reduced taxation by placing many articles on the free list and granted a bounty for the production of sugar, yet did not reduce revenues below expenditures, but provided a surplus of $37,239,762.57 June 30, 1891, and $9,914,453.66 June 30, 1892, and $2,341,674.29 on the thirtieth of June, 1893, when Mr. Cleveland was President and a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress had been elected, all pledged to repeal the McKinley Act and to reduce duties. That the McKinley Act did not produce more revenue in 1893 and 1894 is not a matter of surprise. Any tariff law denounced by the party in power, with a promise to repeal it and to reduce duties, would prevent importations under the old law and thus lower the revenue. Early in December 1893, at the first regular session of Congress during Mr. Cleveland's term, a bill was formulated, and as soon as practicable passed the House of Representatives.

That bill met the hearty approval of the President. If it had become a law as originally presented, the deficiency in revenue would have been much greater than now; but conservative Democratic senators, with the aid of Republican senators, greatly improved the House bill, added other duties, and changed the scope of the measure. With these amendments it became a law. The President refused to sign it, expressing his opposition to the Senate amendments, and yet now supports it when deficiencies have been greatly increased, when the public debt is increasing, and doubts are expressed as to the ability of the government to maintain its notes at par with coin. The President makes no mention in his message of these deficiencies; no mention of the issue of interest-bearing bonds to meet them. The secretary of the treasury is more frank in his statement. He reports a deficiency of $69,803,260.58 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1894, and for the year ended June 30, 1895, $42,805,223.18, and for the six months prior to December 1, 1895, $17,613,539.24; in all, $130,221,023.