another the sum in question, and although that sum in the one statement was communicated to Congress in the accompanying table referred to in that statement, and therefore must have been observed as soon as the report and table were printed, yet it is a matter of congratulation to every friend of our beloved country, and of every member of both Houses of Congress, that the sum thus omitted to be transferred from the one statement to the other diminishes so much the apparent indebtedness of the Government, and enables us to reduce the loan requested to a sum not exceeding twelve millions of dollars. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, To the Hon. GEO. M. DALLAS, MCCLINTOCK YOUNG, Acting Secretary of the Treasury. Vice President of the United States, and President of the Senate. JANUARY 17, 1848. SIR: I have the honor to state that, in consequence of the great press of business in the Treasury Department day and night in preparing statements to accompany your report on the state of the finances, dated the 8th of December last, an error was unfortunately made by my omitting to insert in the estimate of receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1848, embodied in your report, four items of receipts for Treasury notes and loans, specified in the statement B, showing the receipts and expenditures for the quarter ending September, 1847, prepared in the office of the Register of the Treasury to accompany said report, and which four items amount in the aggregate to the sum of $6,915,078. If this omission had not been made, the estimated means for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1848, would have been increased by that amount, and would consequently reduce the estimated excess of expenditures over the means on the 1st July, 1848, from the sum of $15,729,114 27 to the sum of $8,814,036 27; and also the estimated excess of expenditures over the means on the 1st July, 1849, from the sum of $36,274,055 99 to the sum of $29,358,977 99. I have had for many years the duty to perform of embodying the items of the fiscal report of the Treasury, and this being the first instance wherein I have committed an error, I regret it exceedingly. Having discovered it in examining the details of your report, 1 now promptly inform you of the fact, that you may take such means to have it corrected as you may deem proper. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, JNO. D. BARCLAY. Hon. ROBERT J. WALKER, Secretary of the Treasury. REPORT ON THE FINANCES. DECEMBER, 1848. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, December 9, 1848. In obedience to law, the following report is submitted: 1848, were From customs.. From public lands From miscellaneous sources From avails of loans and Treasury notes. Total receipts .. Add balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1847......... 56,693,450 59 1,701,251 25 Total means .... 58,394,701 84 The expenditures during the same fiscal year were... 58,241,167 24 Leaving balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1848, of.... 153,534 60 As appears in detail by accompanying statement A. The estimated receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1849, are From customs-1st quarter-by actual returns ... From public lands From miscellaneous sources .. 32,000,000 00 3,000,000 00 1,200,000 00 36,200,000 00 From loans and Treasury notes-1st quarter-by ac tual returns, per statement B... $10,127,200 00 From loans and Treasury notes-2d, Leaving a balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1849 The estimated receipts and expenditures for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 1849, and ending June 30, The expenditures during the same period, as estimated $32,000,000 00 3,000,000 00 400,000 00 35,400,000 00 2,853,694 84 $38,253,694 84 $3,762,5379 5,040,542 11 $38,253,694 84 Leaving a balance in the Treasury, July 1, 1850..... This statement shows a balance in the Treasury on the 30th June, 1849, of $2,853,694 84, and a balance in the Treasury on the 30th June, 1850, of $5,040,542 11. In the estimated expenditures for the year ending on the 30th of June, 1850, are included balances of appropriations amounting to the sum of $3,762,537 29, a considerable portion of which may not be required. Unless new and extraordinary expenditures are authorized by Congress, no further loans will be required, and the public debt may be reduced. The whole net revenue from duties during the entire period of four years and three months of the operation of the tariff of 1842, (per table D,) was $101,554,653 12, being an annual average of $23,895,208 32. The net revenue received from the tariff of 1846, during its entire operation from 1st of December, 1846, to 30th of September, 1848, (per table E.) was $56,654,563 79, or an average of $30,902,489 28 per annum, being an average of $7,007,280 96 more per annum under the tariff of 1846 than was received under the tariff of 1842. The net revenue for the first fiscal year under the tariff of 1846, (per table A,) was $31,757,070 96, being $757,070 96 more than the estimate of this Department; and this amount would go on augmenting every year under this act, with a favorable state of foreign commerce and industry, in a ratio at least as great as the increase of our population. As the high duties under the act of 1842 were rapidly substituting the domestic articles and excluding the foreign rival, the revenue must have declined. If however, the act of 1842 had yielded the average revenue received during the period of its actual operation, this, we have seen, would have been an annual loss of upwards of seven millions of dollars, as compared with the average revenue of the tariff of 1846. With such a result, instead of a large surplus on the 30th of June, 1850, there would have been an addition of more than twenty-five millions of dollars to our national debt, which must have gone on rapidly increasing, requiring in time of peace new and large loans to be negotiated. If, also, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands were taken from the Treasury for distribution among the States, the augmentation of the debt and accumulating interest would have been still more rapid and alarming. From this disastrous condition we have been saved by the tariff of 1846, yielding from reduced taxes an average excess, thus far, of more than seven millions of dollars over the average receipts from the tariff of 1842. Had that act remained in force during the war, from diminished revenue the loans must have been greatly augmented in amount, with a small and declining income, and instead of premiums realized large discounts must have been allowed. That the revenue would have declined, results from the position of the protectionists, that, by continuing the system a few years, they would supply the whole home market with the protected domestic articles, when the foreign importation must cease, and the revenue also. The result, then, of protection must be the annihilation of the foreign import trade of the country, so far as regards protected products. With the exclusion or diminution of imports, the exports must cease, or be reduced, for foreign nations could not buy then. We exported last year (per table F) $130,203,709 in value of domestic products and fabrics, exclusive of specie; and under low duties this must go on augmenting. But how can foreign countries pay for these exports if we will take no imports, or very few, in return? Clearly our exports must in time cease, or fall to a very small sum; the foreign markets must be destroyed, and the price of our staple exports of cotton, of rice, of tobacco, of breadstuffs, and provisions, must decline; for we cannot take the return in specie from abroad without exhausting those markets in a single year; nor can we consume at home this augmenting surplus. The British empire (per table G) took from us (not during the year of famine, as it is called, of 1847, but) in 1848, our domestic exports, including cotton, rice, tobacco, breadstuffs and provisions, and other domestic articles, exclusive of specie, of the value of $78,741,416, and Great Britain and Ireland of the value of $64,222,268; and this is the trade of our best foreign customer, which protectionists propose to sacrifice by high or prohibitory duties. If the tariff of 1842 gradually excluded, as it must, nearly all British fabrics, could they take $78,741,416 in value of our exports, whilst we would take from them scarcely anything but specie in exchange? Such a trade would exhaust Great Britain of her surplus specie in a single year, and leave her nothing. with which to purchase our exports; and so in regard to all other nations. Thus would go our foreign markets, commerce, and revenue, and with them our carrying trade; and our vessels and steamships would remain at the wharves without freight. If the importation of protected articles would rapidly decrease when the foreign were high in price, and specific duties operated as a protection, under the tariff of 1842, from 41 to 243 per cent., (per table H, compiled from Treasury returns in 1844,) what must not have been the decline of importation and revenue when the foreign article fell, as it has in many cases, fifty per cent., bringing up the specific duty from 41 to |