Trazio Lockle 3-5-45 Str. Tel JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Doc. No. 1. Annual Message of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Penn To the Senate and House of Representatives: GENTLEMEN:-The general health of the people, the rich rewards of husbandry, the quickening spirit that pervades trade and industry, the enlarged prosperity of our country, and its advance in moral and intellectual attainments-these, under a just sense of our dependence, swell our grateful acknowledgments, at this time, to HIM from whose benificence they all proceed. Nothing has occurred since the adjournment of the Legislature, to interrupt the harmony or check the energies of our Commonwealth. On the contrary, intelligent enterprize has been every where crowned with success. The exertions of our people to meet the engagements of the State, have thus far been successful. The payment, by a number of counties of the whole amount of their taxes for 1845, several months before the time at which they have heretofore been collected, added more than three hundred thousand dollars to the effective revenues of the year; and the last Legislature having excluded certain classes of debts from the claims to be immediately provided for by the Treasury, we have been enabled to pay the interest which fell due on the funded debt within the past fiscal year. On the first day of the present session, the balance remaining in the Treasury was $625,000 00 which, with the accruing revenues, will be applicable to the demands of the first of next month. We have thus the reasonable and gratifying assurance, that the interest will then also be punctually paid. The public debt of Pennsylvania, on the 1st of December, 1845, as appears from the report of the Auditor General, was as follows: Funded debt, The interest upon which, according to the Auditor General's compu- $36,739,267 43 1,258,572 00 2,888,803 36 99,750 43 40,986,393 22 2,023,996 09 The balance in the Treasury on the 1st of December, 1844, was Making an aggregate sum of $663,851 88 3,010,062 34 3,673,914 22 The payments from the Treasury during the same period, were, according to the reports of the same officers, Which being deducted from the above, shows the balance in the Trea- The net and available amount outstanding on the 1st Dec., 1845, is estimated at The amount of outstanding taxes on the 1st Dec., 1845, is, therefore, We have an aggregate reduction of the balance in the Treasury and of outstanding taxes on the 1st day of December, 1845, as compared with the same items on the 1st of December, 1844, of 3,289,028 13 384,886 09 $1,009,778 03 874,544 50 135,233 53 278,965 79 414,199 32 From this statement it is apparent, that the receipts into the Treasury during the year, derived from taxation on real and personal estate, and other sources of revenue properly belonging to the year, were less than the demands upon the Treasury for the same period, by the amount above stated. And it is also apparent, that if the Legislature had not postponed the payment of the domestic creditors, and the interest on the certificates issued for interest, and if the cancellation of a portion of the relief notes required under existing laws to be cancelled, had not been deferred, the whole balance in the Treasury would have been exhausted on the 1st of December last. For the purpose of convenient reference, I have appended to this communication a summary statement, (marked A.,) of the receipts and expenditures of the past year, with an estimate, prepared with much care and deliberation, for the current year, ending on the 30th November, 1846. According to this, the receipts of the year from all sources, including Makes an aggregate of Deducting from which the estimated payments during the same period, We arrive at an estimated balance in the Treasury, on the 1st December, 1846, of Which is less by $296,296 09 than it was on the 1st day of December, 1845. $3,217,700 00 384,886 09 3,602,586 09 3,513,996 09 88,590 00 The amount of outstanding taxes on real and personal estate, considered available, on the 1st December, 1845, was $874,544 50 To this is to be added the assessment for 1846, which, according to the best estimates will yield a net revenue, after deducting allowances for expenses of collection and exonerations, of 1,180,000 00 Making an aggregate of If from this aggregate we deduct the estimated collections from these sources, during the year 1846, 1,300,000 00 754,544 50 The difference, Will be the estimated amount of taxes, which on the first December, 1846, will remain outstanding; being $120,000 00 less than was outstanding on the 1st December, 1845. When to the reductions, thus to take place, in the outstanding taxes within the current year, $120,000 00 We add the difference between the balance in the Treasury, on the 1st day of December, 1845, and the estimated balance in the Treasury on the 1st December, 1846, 296,296 09 We arrive at an aggregate reduction of these two items, within the fiscal year, ending 30th November, 1846, of 416,296 09 From this view of the subject it is apparent, that the assessment of the year 1846, on real and personal estates, and the revenues of the year proper, derivable from all other sources, taken together, will be insufficient to meet the demands upon the Treasury during the same period, by the sum of $416,296 09; and that in supplying the deficiency, the balance in the Treasury on the 1st of December, 1846, will have been reduced to $88,590 00, and the arrears of outstanding taxes to the sun of $754,544 50. It is plain, therefore, that our present financial system is inadequate to supply the means of meeting all the demands on the Treasury, except when aided from the balance which had accumulated before the payment of interest was resumed, and by collections from the arrearages of taxes of former years-both of which will soon be exhausted. I am constrained to add, that all these calculations and estimates, pre-suppose that the demands on the Treasury will not be permitted to transcend their ordinary limits, and that no appropriations will be made by the Legislature to new objects. These are not anticipated, because in the present state of the finances, every new appropriation may well be regarded, not as a grant of money unincumbered in the Treasury, but rather as an abstraction of funds, specifically appropriated already, and rightfully belonging to the public creditors. The deficit in our means, under existing laws, presents for the deliberations of the - General Assembly, a topic of paramount importance. It may be remembered that, in the month of January last, I expressed the opinion, in an Executive message, that our finances had not then reached a condition to enable us permanently, and at once, to resume payment of the full interest on our public debt. I regret that subsequent examinations and reflection, have not permitted me to believe that I was then in error. But the legislative action on the question has changed the entire aspect of our duties, and rendered it useless to revert to former views of policy. The payment of interest on the funded debt of the Commonwealth, was, in fact, resumed on the 1st of February, 1845. By that act, the State asserted her present ability to meet her engagements; and it must be our care that the pledge, thus renewed, be not again violated. The credit, fidelity and honor of Pennsylvania, all demand, that, henceforward, the interest on her public debt shall be punctually and fully paid. Heretofore, we might have pleaded the unexpected failure of the depository Bank of the State, a few days before the interest was payable, and when the moneys appropriated to its discharge were accumulated in her vaults-the sudden destruction in |