A. L. Bishop — The State Woyhs of Pennsylvania. 211 



in obtaining their pay, were in distressing conditions.* In his mes- 

 sage of January 14th, 1830, Governor Wolf discussed at length the 

 whole situation. He pointed out the complete inefficiency of the 

 improvement fund to meet the interest on the existing loans of 

 $8,300,000, and on the additional sums that, sooner or later, must 

 be borrowed to complete the works. In order to create an interest 

 fund Avhich should be both ample and permanent, he strongly 

 advised taxation. Again, in their report of February 22d, 1830, the 

 house committee on ways and means stated that it was "the imper- 

 ative duty of the present legislature to adopt effective measures to 

 guard against any possible deficiency to meet the engagements of 

 the state. "t Furthermore, they mentioned that, in view of the 

 rapidly increasing interest charges on the loans, which then aggre- 

 gated nearly $10,000,000,$ they would recommend, later, a system 

 of taxation to supplement the present sources for interest payment. 

 The effect of these and other expressions of determination to 

 strengthen the interest fund was shown, even before any action was 

 taken in this direction, in the rise of the credit of the state. For 

 between March, 1830, and December, 1831, $386,989.71 were paid 

 into the treasury as premiums on stock loans, § and diverted to the 

 fund for interest payment. During this time, to use the words of 

 Governor Wolf, "capitalists and moneyed institutions vied with 



each other as to which of them should obtain the state loans, 



in the entire confidence that an adequate fund for the punctual 

 semi-annual payment of the interest would be established." || 



In this matter, however, they were over-sanguine. For the taxa- 

 tion bills reported by the committee on ways and means were by no 

 means as extensive as had been assured, nor were they adequate to 

 the ever-increasing demands for interest money. They were as fol- 

 lows : — First, a tax of one mill on the dollar upon personal property 

 not subject to county rates and levies ; second, an* increase of one 



* See J. H. Rep., 1829-30, II, p. 574. 

 t J. H. Rep., 1829-30, II, p. 663. 



I The whole amount of money appropriated for the stale works up to 

 December 10th, 1830, was $10,288,309.69. See Haz. Reg.,, VII, p. 12. 



§ The permanent loans upon which this amount of premiums was paid 

 aggregated $6,783,101.88. They were placed at 5 per cent, and all sold at a 

 ' premium. See Hammond, Tabular View of the Financial Affairs of Penn- 

 sylvania, p. 9. 



II J. H. Rep., 1831-32, II, p. 19. 



