INTRODUCTION. 121 



of which would, in his opinion, ensure the prompt payment of the interest, and 

 the ultimate redemption of the principal of the public debt. 



Samuel B. Ruggles, chairman of the committee on ways and means of the 

 assembly, submitted a report, in which he examined the condition of the finances, 

 and reviewed the progress of internal improvements. In this paper he showed 

 that, on the first of July, 1836, the revenues of the canal fund had accumulated 

 to a sum sufficient to pay the canal debt ; which incident it was declared ought 

 to be regarded as the crowning event in the canal policy of the state, and as 

 fixing an important era in its history. He further showed that when the canals 

 were commenced, the state possessed productive property valued at $2,740,000, 

 yielding a revenue of $419,900; a school fund of $982,000; and a literature 

 fund of $26,000 : that when the canals were commenced, the nett income of the 

 treasury was reduced to $180,000 annually, by the diversion of the salt and 

 auction revenues to the canal fund : that a tax which had previously been laid to 

 defray the expenses of the late war, was then continued : that in 1826, the rapid 

 increase of the canal tolls began to exhibit itself, and the state tax was discon- 

 tinued, on the ground that the balance remaining of the general fund, $2,740,000, 

 would sustain the government, until the debt, for which the salt and auction du- 

 ties, and canal tolls were pledged, should be extinguished ; and that those reve- 

 nues would then be liberated and placed at the service of the state : that by the 

 exhaustion of the general fund, in defraying the ordinary expenses of the govern- 

 ment, and by loans for the same purpose, the sum of $3,156,000 had been ex- 

 pended ; but that the salt and auction duties, which had been received between 

 the years 1817 and 1836, and paid to the public creditors, amounted to upwards 

 of $5,000,000 ; that those duties, to the amount of $5,000,000, were virtually 

 invested in the canals as a substitute for the $3,156,000 expended during the 

 same period for the ordinary purposes of government : and that the state, since 

 the year 1825, had created a debt, then yet outstanding, for the construction of 

 lateral canals, amounting to $3,555,000. He further showed that, in the twenty 

 years since the commencement of the canals in 1817, the productive property of 

 Intr. 16 



