COMPTROLLER OP THE TREASURY. vii

ment and management of the revenue and for the support of
the public credit;" and in this connection, I respectfully sug-
gest, as an improvement, the reduction of the rate of in-
terest on the new loan to 5, and, if expedient, to 4-per cent;
and as a better plan for the management of the revenue, a
healing clause to the Constitution, extending a, general par-
don for the non-observance of Sec. 34, Art 3, of that instru-
ment. It is right and proper that there shall he a system of
special-funds-accounts enjoined upon and observed by the
book-keeping of the Treasury Department; but there ought
not to be in the system a constitutional prohibition, which-
proves to be impracticable.

''Statement B" shows the amount paid, during the fiscal
year 1879, on account of interest on the public debt, to be-
$621,695.84. On a small portion of the public debt interest
is payable quarterly; but for, by far, the larger portion of it
provision has to be made to meet the interest on or before
the first day of January and the first day of July each year;
and the sterling interest, which approximates one-half of the
whole, is required to be in hand three months in advance,
for sure transmission to London. These ami other heavy
periodic demands upon the Treasury, accompanied by concur-
rent, periodic fallings-off from receipts into the Treasury,
occasion a great fluctuation in the balances on hand from
time to time. Sometimes the balance is small and somtimes
large—seemingly, too large as a surplus

The monthly balance during the last fiscal year, given,
below, will illustrate, viz:

Balance in Treasury Proper at the end of the
fiscal year 1878, as shown by Comptroller's
last report............................................. $204,165 88

Receipts in October, 1878............................ 126,620 44

$330,786 32
Disbursements in October, 1878.................... 390,050 24

Balance where?—due the banks Nov. 1, '78, $59,263 92:
Disbursements in November, 1878,................ 26,135 33

Amount carried forward.................... $35.399 25