The privilege is especially reserved to the Government to substitute at par within ten days from this date, in lieu of the 4 per cent coin bonds, other bonds in terms payable in gold and bearing only 3 per cent interest if the issue of the same should in the meantime be authorized by the Congress.

The arrangement thus completed, which after careful inquiry appears in present circumstances and considering all the objects desired to be the best attainable, develops such a difference in the estimation of investors between bonds made payable in coin and those specifically made payable in gold in favor of the latter as is represented by three-fourths of a cent in annual interest.  In the agreement just concluded the annual saving in interest to the Government if 3 per cent gold bonds should be substituted for 4 per cent coin bonds under the privilege reserved would be $539,159 amounting in thirty years, or at the maturity of the coin bonds, to $16,174,770.

Of course there never should be a doubt in any quarter as to the redemption in gold of the bonds of the Government which are made payable in coin.  Therefore the discrimination, in the judgment of investors, between our bond obligations payable in coin and those specifically made payable in gold is very significant.  It is hardly necessary to suggest that, whatever may be our views on the subject, the sentiments or preferences of those with whom we must negotiate in disposing of our bonds for gold are not subject to our dictation.

I have only to add that in my opinion the transaction herein detailed for the information of the Congress promises better results than the efforts previously made in the direction of effectively adding to our gold reserve through the sale of bonds, and I believe it will tend, as far as such action can in present circumstances, to meet the determination expressed in the law repealing the silver-purchasing clause of the act of July 14, 1890, and that, in the language of such repealing act, the arrangement made will aid our efforts to “insure the maintenance of the parity in value of the coins of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts.”

GROVER CLEVELAND.

[Footnote 17:  See pp. 561-565.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 8, 1895.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith, for the information of the Congress, a copy of a telegraphic dispatch just received from Mr. Willis, our minister to Hawaii, with a copy of the reply thereto which was immediately sent by the Secretary of State.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 11, 1895.

To the Senate:: 

On the 8th day of January I received a copy of the following Senate resolution: