and machinery, and
improvements at navy-yards 4,199,299.69 12,300,700.31
For expenditures on account of the
District of Columbia 1,138,836.41 2,611,163.59
For interest on the public debt 14,797,297.96 39,702,702.04
_____________ ______________
Total ordinary expenditures 67,942,090.33 190,057,909.67
=======================================================================

Total receipts, actual and estimated $343,000,000.00
Total expenditures, actual and estimated 258,000,000.00
______________
85,000,000.00
Estimated amount due the sinking fund 45,816,741.07
______________
Leaving a balance of 39,183,258.93

If the revenue for the fiscal year which will end on June 30, 1885,
be estimated upon the basis of existing laws, the Secretary is of the
opinion that for that year the receipts will exceed by $60,000,000 the
ordinary expenditures including the amount devoted to the sinking fund.

Hitherto the surplus, as rapidly as it has accumulated, has been devoted
to the reduction of the national debt.

As a result the only bonds now outstanding which are redeemable at the
pleasure of the Government are the 3 percents, amounting to about
$305,000,000.

The 4-1/2 percents, amounting to $250,000,000, and the $737,000,000 4
percents are not payable until 1891 and 1907, respectively.

If the surplus shall hereafter be as large as the Treasury estimates now
indicate, the 3 per cent bonds may all be redeemed at least four years
before any of the 4-1/2 percents can be called in. The latter at the
same rate of accumulation of surplus can be paid at maturity, and the
moneys requisite for the redemption of the 4 percents will be in the
Treasury many years before those obligations become payable.

There are cogent reasons, however, why the national indebtedness should
not be thus rapidly extinguished. Chief among them is the fact that only
by excessive taxation is such rapidity attainable.

In a communication to the Congress at its last session I recommended
that all excise taxes be abolished except those relating to distilled
spir