ADDRESS.

Members of the Senate

and of the House of Representatives.

I CALL your attention at once to the financial exhibit, the statistics of which, as well as those relating to other interests of the State, have been, as usual, furnished by the respective departments to which they relate.

THE PUBLIC DEBT.

The following is a statement of the amount and character of the funded debt:

The maturity of the remaining portions of the

debt is shown in the following table:

The aggregate of the several sinking funds

amounted on the 1st of January, 1881, to $12,990,812 59

Notwithstanding the payment from the funds of the Back Bay Loan, amounting to $220,000.

The abundance of money seeking investment at the present low rates of interest is an embarrassment in the management of these funds.

They were established on the basis of six per cent investments, and the compulsory loan of their accumulations at lower rates may impair their ability to meet some portions of the debt at maturity. It is expected however that any deficit that may arise from this cause will be overcome by other resources set apart by law for the purpose. In the case of the

"Prison and Hospital Loan Sinking Fund," it will be necessary during the present session of the legislature to make good the deficit occasioned by the failure of the Commonwealth to sell the State prison property at Charlestown. Chap. 391 of the Acts of 1874 provides that this property shall be sold, and the proceeds of the sale paid into the treasury as a contribution to that fund. It also provides, that, if the receipts of the fund do not in any fiscal year equal three per cent of the total amount of scrip issued, the difference shall be raised by taxation. That contingency has arisen by the inability of the state to dispose of the property, although the amount to be raised cannot be definitely stated at the present time.

This property has been advertised for sale, and bids for it have been invited; but no purchaser has been found, except for a strip of land lying outside of the enclosure of the old State Prison, and alongside of the Boston and Maine Railroad, containing some fiftyseven thousand square feet, for the purchase of which the Fitchburg Railroad Company have negotiated at a price amounting to some $47,750. This will necessitate the moving of a freight track of the Eastern Railroad in accordance with Chap. 360 of the Acts of the year 1873.

The price of real estate is, however, rising; and as this prison site, containing several hundred thousand square feet, is so near the convergence of several railroads, and is so accessible to industrial interests, the prospect of selling it at a good price, within a reasonable time, is much improved.

The net receipts from this property for the year 1880 were $2,123.92. In 1879 they were $1,521.76.

COMPARATIVE RESULTS.

The financial transactions of the year have been confined mainly to the receipts and disbursements of the revenue for the expenses of the government. No excessive outlay of money has been required to meet unexpected emergencies. The funded debt has been decreased, and there are no temporary loans to provide for.

The credit of the Commonwealth maintains the high standing which it has always enjoyed at home and abroad, and which has been gained by the most scrupulous good faith in the keeping of all its pecuniary obligations. No whisper of repudiation has found echo in its legislative halls, nor among its people.

The expenses of 1880 compared with those of 1879 show the following aggregates :

The exceptional expenses of 1880 are in part due to the very increase of the receipts, -$561,000 of said expenses being the excess of the corporation and national bank tax refunded in 1880 over the amount refunded in 1879 by the Commonwealth to its cities and towns.

ESTIMATES FOR 1881.

The estimates for the current year are based upon existing laws, and the expectation that the present business prosperity will continue.

This is a condition of things better even than that of two years ago, when the deficit was reported at $316,392.21, and when, unwisely, as was shown by the result, a tax of only half a million dollars was laid. For the coming year a tax certainly not ex