The following is a statement of receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1867: The following is a statement of receipts and expenditures for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 1867: The Secretary estimates that the receipts and expenditures for the three quarters endin June 30, 1868; will be as follows: The expenditures for the same period, according to his estimates, will be— Leaving a surplus of estimated receipts over estimated expenditures of.... $1,000,000 00 The receipts and expenditures for the next fiscal year, ending June 30, 1869, are estimated as follows: For the Navy Department.. $51,000,000 00 36,000,000 00 For the interest on the public debt.. 130,000,000 00- $872,000,000 00 $9,000,000 00 The foregoing estimates are made on the general average of the receipts and expenditures for the past nine months. The Secretary is hopeful, however, that Congress will take measures to largely reduce expenditures in all branches of the service, so that a steady reduction of the debt may be continued. The Department of State has referred to this Department, for consideration, the official report of the proceedings of the International Monetary Conference held at Paris in June and July of the present year, and also the report of Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, the delegate in that Conference from the United States of America. * * * The matters thus presented are of high monetary interest to the United States, and merit the attentive and careful examination of its public authorities, executive and legislative. They are fully discussed in the separate report of Mr. Ruggles, under the following heads : 1. The composition and character of the Conference, embracing nine separate nations, with a population of 320,000,000 inhabitants. 2. The importance of including, in the proposed monetary reform, the nations of Central and South America. 8.-The necessity of monetary union between the Eastern and Western Continents. 4. The intermediate position of the two Americas between Western Europe and Eastern Asia, and their duty as the principal producers of the gold of the world. 5.-The cost of recoinage required by the proposed unification, with full statistics of the coinage, past and present, of the United States, Great Britain and France. The gold coinage of the United States, from 1792 to 1851, the report states to have been.. From 1851 to 1866 (fifteen years) there has been coined by the United States. France.. $180,184,268 480,105,755 324,492,516 Total 6.-The probable rate of future product of gold in the United States. $2,108,356,316 7 and 8.-The history of the varying coinages of Europe, and their gradual consolidation. 9.-The contrast presented by the coinage of the United States as unified by the Constitution. 10.-The necessity of intercontinental monetary conferences of nations First attempt in the Congress at Berlin in 1863. 11.-Quadripartite monetary treaty of December, 1865, between France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, with subsequent adnesion of the Pontificial States and of Greece, partially unifying Europe. 12.-The necessity of a single standard exclusively of gold. The fallacy and impossibility of a double standard of gold and silver. 14.-A 66 common denominator," or unit, of gold of defined weight and value, rendering "dollars" and "francs" synonimous, or mutually convertible. 14.-Action in the Conference by the delegates from Great Britain. 15. The consent of France to issue a new gold coin of 26 francs to circulate side by side with the half eagle of the United States and the sovereign of Great Britain, when reduced to that value. The proper examination of a subject so comprehensive can hardly fail to benefit the Government and the people of the United States. * * * * HUGH MCCULLOCH, * |