THE STATE BORROWING MONEY.
The PRESIDENT stated the special order to be the consideration of the bill, [H. R. 104,] to provide for a loan of $75,000 from the Sinking Fund. The question being on the adoption of Mr. Cobb's amendment, by way of instructions to the committee on recommittal of the bill.
Mr. WAGNER. I wish to correct a misapprehension that the State has never paid any interest on the loans heretofore made to the State. By the report of the Sinking Fund Commissioners, I see they had State bonds to the amount of $773,000, and that we have been paying ever since they were issued the interest thereon, in cash, semi-annually.
Mr. COBB. My understanding is that the interest is simply made into new bonds and handed over to the commissioners-and that the State has never paid any gold or silver directly into the Sinking Fund on account of interest-but have in other words been continually adding interest to the principal. I insist upon it that this fund ought not to be encroached upon in this way. Mr. C. continued, at length, in opposition to the passage of the bill.
Mr. WAGNER. As I understand it, the bill proposes to take $75,000 from the Sinking Fund, and make some five or six thousand dollars for it in the course of three months, certain. The present plan of disbursing that fund is a perfect waste gate, and now gentlemen object to making a perfectly safe loan with a sure gain in three months of about five thousand dollars.
[A message from the Governor announced his approval of Mr. Carnahan's bill [S. 14] described on page 25 of these reports.]
Mr. SHIELDS. I say if the money must be borrowed, let us take it from the banks and let the school money go to the several counties where it belongs. It looks to me singular that we should be borrowing money while we have near half a million of dollars in the county treasuries of the State.
Mr. JONES. By the llth section of the act of '59 to provide a treasury system, it is made the duty of county treasurers to send up any moneys belonging to the State on the demand of the State Treasurer, and no treasurer in the State can avoid complying with that demand.
Mr. HAMILTON did not believe such a demand would be responded to.
Mr. ANTHONY. The necessity is upon us to borrow money, and the only question is, where shall we borrow it? It seems to me the bill proposes nothing more than what is perfectly right and proper, if the State is without money by the delinquency of county officers, as has been intimated here.
Mr. LINE. It seems to me until some gentleman shall inform us that there has been a demand upon any county treasuaer, and the officer has refused to comply, the gentleman from Floyd should not cast such an imputation upon our county officers. Instead of legislating for a loan, we should instruct the Treasurer of State to issue orders to the different county treasurers, asking them immediately to transmit up to the capital whatever funds they have on hand.
Mr. CRAVENS, [Mr. Steele in the Chair] I am decidedly in favor of the bill under consideration. The treasurers of the different counties are acting under the law of 1852, which gives them till April to make their returns ; and having loaned these monies to their friends, it is almost an impossibility to get returns till then. I prefer to borrow from the Sinking Fund, for we have a money crisis upon us, and if the loan is made from the Bank of the State, we cripple her energies, and she cannot accommodate the people of the State to the extent required. If a heavier crisis comes, the bank will put our stocks in market, for it must have money; but if the state stocks are in the hands of the Sinking Fund Commissioners, they will hold on to them, and not allow them to be sacrificed.
Mr. RAY While the law of 1852 gives gives county treasurers till April to make their settlements, the law of 1859 requires then? to pay over what they may have on hand at the time it is called for. If we must borrow, let it be from the Bank.
Mr. TARKINGTON opposed the passage of the bill. If we borrow at all, I am in favor of borrowing from some other institution than the Sinking Fund, for it is a virtual frittering away of that fund. I move to lay the bill and amendments on the table for the purpose of page: 118[View Page 118] the introduction of a resolution directing the Treasurer of State to call upon county treasurers for whatever moneys may be in their hands belonging to the State.
Mr. WAGNER, demanded a division of the question:
Tho question being on laying the motion to recommit, with instructions by way of amendment on the table, it was rejected by yeas 16, nays 35.
The question then recurring on laying the bill on the table, it was agreed to by yeas 24, nays 17.
