Bonds for the sinking fund                               $74,371,200.00
Fractional currency for the sinking fund                     109,001.05
Loan of February, 1861                                     7,418,000.00
Ten-forties of 1864                                        2,016,150.00
Five-twenties of 1862                                         18,300.00
Five-twenties of 1864                                          3,400.00
Five-twenties of 1865                                         37,300.00
Consols of 1865                                              143,150.00
Consols of 1867                                              959,150.00
Consols of 1868                                              337,400.00
Texan indemnity stock                                          1,000.00
Old demand, compound-interest, and other notes                18,330.00
And to the increase of cash in the Treasury               14,637,023.93
______________
100,069,404.98

The requirements of the sinking fund for the year amounted to $90,786,064.02, which sum included a balance of $49,817,128.78, not provided for during the previous fiscal year.  The sum of $74,480,201.05 was applied to this fund, which left a deficit of $16,305,873.47.  The increase of the revenues for 1881 over those of the previous year was $29,352,901.10.  It is estimated that the receipts during the present fiscal year will reach $400,000,000 and the expenditures $270,000,000, leaving a surplus of $130,000,000 applicable to the sinking fund and the redemption of the public debt.

I approve the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury that provision be made for the early retirement of silver certificates and that the act requiring their issue be repealed.  They were issued in pursuance of the policy of the Government to maintain silver at or near the gold standard, and were accordingly made receivable for all customs, taxes, and public dues.  About sixty-six millions of them are now outstanding.  They form an unnecessary addition to the paper currency, a sufficient amount of which may be readily supplied by the national banks.

In accordance with the act of February 28, 1878, the Treasury Department has monthly caused at least two millions in value of silver bullion to be coined into standard silver dollars.  One hundred and two millions of these dollars have been already coined, while only about thirty-four millions are in circulation.

For the reasons which he specifies, I concur in the Secretary’s recommendation that the provision for coinage of a fixed amount each month be repealed, and that hereafter only so much be coined as shall be necessary to supply the demand.

The Secretary advises that the issue of gold certificates should not for the present be resumed, and suggests that the national banks may properly be forbidden by law to retire their currency except upon reasonable notice of their intention so to do.  Such legislation would seem to be justified by the recent action of certain banks on the occasion referred to in the Secretary’s report.