CHAP. 31.—PREAMBLE and JOINT RESOLUTION authorizing
the Goyernor to request the public creditors to meet the General
Assembly for conference about a plan of settlement of the State
debt.

Approved January 15, 18'79.

Whereas, in the estimation of the general assembly, it is
desirable that such a speedy, just, and final settlement of the
public debt should be consummated as will bring the payment
of the interest assumed thereon within the ability of the com-
monwealth; and whereas this general ‘assembly, at its last
session, in “an act to provide for the consolidation of the
public debt and the payment of an uniform rate of interest
thereupon,” approved March fourth, eighteen hundred and sev-
enty-eight, did submit to the creditors of the commonwealth a
proposition, which parties claiming to represent a large num-
ber of said creditors have indicated their unwillingness to
accept; and whereas certain parties representing the holders
of a large portion of the bonds of the commonwealth have,
through the governor, suggested terms of settlement which, in
their opinion, would be acceptable to a very large majority, if
not the whole, of the holders of Virginia securities, which
terms will not, in the judgment of the general assembly, be
acceptable to the people of the commonwealth, because of the
impracticability of increasing the present rate of taxation, and
in view of the greatly reduced resources of the state, but are
anxious to do all, consistent with what is believed to be the
interest of the state and her creditors, to adjust, if possible,
the difference existing between the proposition made by the
general asserably at its last session and the several proposi-
tions now before us relating to # settlement of the public debt ;
and whereas the prospect of such a settlement as will be ac-
ceptable to both the people of the commonwealth and the
halders of the bonds of the state may be promoted by a direct
interview between their respective representatives ; therefore,

Resolved by the general assembly. That the governor be
authorized to request the presiding officer of the council of
foreion bondholders of London, England, Messieurs Baring
Brothers and Company, Messieurs L. G. and G. C. Ward,
Messieurs De Rothschild, Mister August Belmont, Messieurs
Brown Brothers and Company, Messieurs Richard Irvin and
Company, Mister Charles M. Fry, and Mister Hugh McCul-
loch, or the authorized representatives of said persons, and
such other creditors of the commonwealth, or their representa-
tives, as may desire to be present, to meet this general assem-
bly in the city of Richi ond, on the twenty-second day of
January, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, for the purpose
ot conferring upon the subject of an adjustment of the public
debt.