The result of the large floating debt was injustice to creditors, an added cost to the state for supplies purchased, and collusion between officials and creditors in the payment of warrants.1 The discount on warrants was as much as 50 per cent, and the spectacle was presented of men and boys employed by merchants to stand in the treasurer's office from morning- until night to watch for deposits.2 Suggestions were made for paying warrants according to their date or number, and for making them receivable at the treasury in discharge of debts due the state, but neither of these was adopted, though the former would seem to have been desirable. As soon as the new administration came into power the payment of warrants dated before January 15, 1874, was temporarily arrested, but they were allowed 8 per cent interest from date of registration with the comptroller.3

1 The Report of the Comptroller, 1874, gives as the amount of certificates of public debt fundable in 6 per cent bonds $40,974.84. The amount given should be $46,947.84.

2 This amount includes $262,003.05 accrued interest.

But for the chance obstinacy of the comptroller and the opposition of the governor, Texas would have issued from the Reconstruction period saddled with a heavy debt representing subsidies to railroads. The state was under moral obligation to the International Railroad Company to adjust its claim to a subsidy, because construction of the road had begun and the company had otherwise met the conditions of the chartering act. The blocking of the will of the legislature and of the governor in this matter by the comptroller, while his action redounded to the welfare of the state, was, to put it mildly, extraordinarily presumptious. In the adjustment of the matter a very respectable element favored a subsidy and thought that this kind of aid generally would be the most effective in securing railroads. The cost, however, which this policy would have involved would have been beyond the ability of the state, and the grant of land and exemption from taxation for twenty-five years to the International Company and land grants to other companies is to be regarded as a wise solution of the vexed question.

1 Message of Governor Coke-, February 10, 1874. Warrants outstanding on the general revenue fund amounted on August 31, 1872, to $544,745.24; on August 31, 1873, to $679,404.83; on August 31, 1874, to $628,370.23. and warrants outstanding on the school fund at the latter date amounted to $104,577.74.

2 House Journal, 12th Leg.. Second Sess., p. 435. Message of Governor Davis, January 14, 1873. Message of Governor Coke, February 10, 1874.

3 Act of March 7, 1874; Laws of 1874, p. 239.