larger than the people can spare from their private affairs. Recourse to public credit is then wise as well as virtually necessary. A public debt is incurred. An account of the successive uses by a state of its credit thus reveals the character of its policy in meeting such crises or opportunities. Public expenditures at these times are not restricted to the means afforded by taxation and the public domain, but additional support is sought through loans, and the burden of repayment is shifted in part upon posterity — and justly so, for posterity had a stake in the perpetuation of freedom or in the construction of the improvement which will remain for its use. A sketch of the use of public credit in Oregon thus comes appropriately as an integral part of a complete account of its public expenditures.
Furthermore, the whole process of taking this portion of the social income as revenue from the people who have pro- duced it, and of applying it safely and economically to the purposes they intended it to serve, requires the highest degree of public efficiency. There is first the determination by the legislature of the amounts needed for public purposes and of the ways and means of supplying these amounts. Rightly determined, the total sum diverted from the use by the people in their homes and in their business will just suffice for the public purposes in hand. Then there is the handling of this revenue while in transit from the pockets of the people to their service as the support of the public servants and public activities. Great waste and loss are certain without skillfully devised and honestly conducted treasury administration. An avoidable deficiency of revenue causes embarrassment and impairment of service; while, on the other hand, a large unused surplus fosters extravagance, and means that the people are being deprived of the use of their hard-earned wealth. What the records reveal pertaining to financial legislation in Oregon and the handling of the resources of the treasury must thus come in for attention. Skill and economy in these matters involve public interests of great magnitude. Bung-
