65G TAXATION AND DEBT. 



tlements in tlie Southwest, and it is to be attributed altogether to an 

 intelligent and careful husbandry which developed the natural resources 

 of the State. For 1870, the census valuation, reduced to a gold basis 

 for comparison, amounted to only $160,416,582, showing that nearly 70 

 per cent, of the accumulations of 1860 had been sunk by the war. The 

 facts furnished by these pages show how great in many regards the 

 recuperation has been since this date, and especially since 1876. No 

 estimate of the aggregate gains will be here attempted, as without an 

 elaborate study of the values in each of the States, such as is being now 

 conducted by the census office, it would furnish no basis of comparison 

 with other sections. It is safer to compare the relations of debt and taxa- 

 tion with certain comparatively well ascertained factors of wealth. Of 

 the three factors of wealth, land, labor and capital, it may be assumed in 

 communities so homogeneous, in most respects, as the States of the Union, 

 that land and labor correspond, to a considerable extent, with population 

 and area, and therefore a comparison of the debt and taxation per capita 

 and per square mile of one community with another, if not decisive, is 

 at least dealing with tolerably well known elements having a most im- 

 portant bearing on the problem. 



