Mr. RAYMOND. I am sure the House has listened with very great satisfaction to the clear and interesting statement which has just been made by the chairman of the ComWays&Means of the financial condition of the country. It cannot but give satisfaction to find the country prepared for an immediate reduction in the amount of its internalrevenue so very considerable as that which the committee proposes to make and it will be equally satisfactory to the House and to the country to find that this reduction is to o crate so generally upon those processes and articles which are ofv most importance to the great mass of the people of this nation. I am unwilling to trespass to an consider able extent upon the patience of teHouse; but I shall be glad, with its indulgence, to make a few remarks upon the general subject of taxation, especially in the attitude in which we approach it now. Perhipps I may find an apol ogy for so doing in the act that it is a wholly new subject. Until within the last few years, we have made it our boast, justly and truly, that we were the most lightly taxed nation on the face of the earth. how we are compelled to confess that we are among the most heavily burdened of them all. This, sir, is one of the many vast changes which have been wrought in our condition by the rebellion we have nst suppressed. We have incurred a vast debt consequent on the war for the suppression of that rebellion. We have, moreover, provided, necessarily, for a permanent increase, more or less considerable, in the ordinary expenses of the government. Those expenses must be met year by year. The interest upon the debt mustalso be met as it becomes due; and I think it of the utmost importancein all respects to our credit, to our character, and to the courage with which all burdens will be borne by the people, that we should lose no time in making a be 11 uing toward paying off the principal of that debt. It does not seem to me wise, sir, that we should begin to accustom ourselves or the creditors of the nation, the people upon whom these obligations rest, to the idea that this debt may be fastened upon us like the debts of England and of France, never to be paid througfii all time to come. The ordinary expenses of the Government, as they are estimated by the SecyTreasury in his report, laid upon our tables at the opening of the session, are $143,000,000. The interest to be paid during this year is fixed at about the same amount, some 2 millions less. Both these sums, I think there is reason to suppose, may be somewhat reduced. The expense s of the Army and Navy are not likely to )e as high as they were originally estimated; and the amount which will be due for interest will be somewhat reduced by the fact that the SecyTreasury is not likely to fund so much of the debt now bearing no interest as it was originally supposed he would. But these 2 sums, taking them at his estimates, make the considerable amount of $284,000,000, which will be required to meet the expenses of the Government and the interest on the debt for one year. I think we ought also to begin at once to make some provision for aying the principal of the national debt. I do not think it would be wise for us to provide less than $50,000,000 perannum for that purpose, the sum to be increased from year to year as our system of taxation maybe perfected, and as the industry may gradually a apt itself to the new burdens which are imposed upon it. This would make an aggregate sum of$334,000,000to beprovided annually toward meeting the excrises of the Government and the interest an installments on the principal of the public debt.This sum will be required annu y, without any serious diminution from year to year, until we shall have paid off so much of the principal of the public debt as will allow us to estimate the interest at a sum considerably less. It will of course be growing less and less from year to year. 334 million dollars, in round numbers $350,000,000, is a very large sum for a nation to pay annually. It is very large for us, in consideration of the fact that it is so much larger than we have ever before been called upon to pay or have any perfected machinery for raising the means to pay. The aggregate revenues of GreatBritain during the last year were but $354,000,000, and those of France but $350,000,000.