The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-21 00:00:00

366 been witnessed in France we have no expe rience here. The career of Louts NAPOLEON would be impossible in this country ; at least, so long as our Legislature is respected, and our Constitution is preserved fret* the despe rate experiments which some queoltish pelt c ians would subject it to. We believe it to so far from true that illlgitin to jwwer, os• convulsive success, Is viewed with auy favour by our people, Wet they regard it, pad .l ustly i with the greatest distrust. The Severer ef the FRENCH would not have cared to come among us without some better credentials to respect than could be afforded by the success of--kne- foup tCitat of December, 1832. He waited until his decided course had been justi fled by the beneficent use of his authority, and by the most signal proofs of his moderation, both at home and abroad. • He has apparently felt that his assumption of supreme power would be judged by his exercise of it. The most impartial decision of history has never refused the title of Great to thoso sagacious and daring minds which in periods of great civil convulsion have by the assertion of their energetic genius vindicated their natural right to rule, and by elevating themselves have saved society. Such cases must be independent of ordinary rules of morality and duty. That such rules must be set aside is one of the great evils of national disturbance. The spirit of a people may be enervated, or corrupted, or irritated, by the very benefits which arbitrary government confers upon them, and nothing is more fatal to order than precedents of success in revolu• Lion. But the power which rises from politi cal chaos may be pure from the blame both of its cause and effects ; and it is entitled to our highest admiration on grounds of principle alone, when strongly tempted to vicious excess, for the very reason that it is supreme and irresponsible, it identifies itself with the good of the people it governs, and with the most scrupulous good faith in its intercourse with other nations. • The truth is, that the irregular career of the Emperor is much rather calculated to create a prejudice against him in this country than to raise sympathies in his favour ; and to conceal this circumstance is to rob him of half his glory. The fact that he has already "lived down" the suspicions and enmities excited by his sudden elevation is a noble tri bute to the greatness of his character, and to the equity and wisdom of his Government. He must know that he has been welcomed by us, not for his success, but for his honesty— not as a lucky gamester who staked fortune and life on the chance of obtaining the Impe rial Crown, nor as the legitimate heir of our great enemy his uncle, but as the head of the French nation, and as an ally who, having made common cause with us to check the aggressive policy of Russia, has given us the strongest proofs of his sincerity and zeal. When severely tried by the hesitating and unworthy diplomacy of Lord ABERDEEN'S Cabinet he "still placed absolute confidence in the inte grity of the English people, and by postponing his projected departure for the Crimea he has shown that no pretensions on his part shall interfere with the pacific negotiations proceed ing at Vienna. If it is a proof of his ability that he has made no mistake since first called to the head of the French Government, it is a yet stronger proof of his principle that his foreign policy has in every instance been open and straightforward. He has won our confi dence by showing himself deserving of it; and that respect and admiration which the mere fact of his success would never have extorted from us, we freely accord to the beneficence of his government, and to his unswerving honesty of purpose. SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS. IT was our duty last year occasionally to offer strictures and comment freely upon the financial operations of Mr. GLADSTONE, when Chancellor of the Exchequer. We admitted, readily, his great talent, his eloquence, his knowledge of details ; we censured his arrogance, his rashness, his ambition ; we combatted his financial views and operations ; Mre endatoured to expose their fallacies and THE PRESS. results. Mr. GLADSTONE has been succeeded by a gentleman in every respect his very opposite. We bav, n,o desire to speak dis paragingly of Oic 0, Lewis, still less sheMd *4? be 41gepose4 to notice any persogig disadvggfages gilder which he may be isp, posed tel labor. We believe him to be a min of conelidelablOttleut, hut his talents are 144 dissimilar as gottoilito fr om those of 6LADgtONE. He ha d hitt% experience in St veral departments of Gove rnment. He was a Poor-law Commissioner n Ireland, Under- Secretary for the Home Department, and Secretary to the Treasury. He conducted himself respectably in each of these offices. His appointment as Chancellor of the Ex chequer might have created surprise, if the office had not been refused by all others to whom it had been offered, and if Mr. WILSON . B name had not been mentioned in connection with it. We considered him, however, a sensible man, and we supposed he would have adopted the Budget of Mr. GLADSTONE. But he has chosen to take different ground ; and it will be our duty to inquire whether he has exer cised a sound judgment in his first financial operation. We condemned Mr. GLADSTONE'S doctrine that the expenses of a war are to be defrayed out of the year's taxation ; and we were pre pared to have supported a loan. But the value and merits of a loan depend above all things upon the manner and terms of effecting it. No one will now deny that Mr. PITT, not withstanding his financial abilities and ex perience, committed great mistakes, and has involved the country seriously by his mode of contracting loans. Great Britain, moreover, is not now what she was then, and the war with Russia is unlike the war we were waging with France and the world. Assuming a loan to be decided upon, we expected something new in 1855. We will explain the CHANCELLOR of the Ex JHEQUER'S plan before we proceed to comment upon it. Requiring sixteen millions for the public service, he might have borrowed it in various ways. 1. He might have raised it by the creation of Stock—say Three per Cents.—and made the competition the price at which this Stock would have been taken in the market. The objection to this plan would have been that, in the present depressed state of the market, with the additional depression caused by the operation, the country would have been pledged to pay hereafter 1001. in clash (if the Stock was ever to be redeemed) for Stock which under existing circumstances would scarcely bring 861. This is the objection which lies against most of Mr. Purrs operations; and it holds good even against the last of our war loans; for, in 1815 we borrowed thirty-six millions, and we gave for every 1001. in cash no less than 1741. in Three per Cents., and 101. in Four per Cents., making the interest 51. 12s. 4d. per cent. 2. He might have raised it by the creation of terminable annuities. The objection to the system of raising money by terminable an nuities is this :—that the public are thought to ba disinclined to such annuities, and the terms consequently are usually ur favorable. But there is much to be said in favour of terminable annuities ; they really embody the principle of a Sinking Fund in its best form ; and we believe there would have been no great difficulty in obtaining the sixteen millions on such securities. 8. He might have raised it by the creation of Stock to be issued at par, fixing the rate of interest himself. Or, 4. He might have left the rate of interest to be determined by public competition. There are other modes which we need not notice. We believe the 3rd of these modes, under all the circumstances of the case, would have been found tho best, being analogous to the means used by our great companies for rais ing loans. Had he fixed a liberal rate of interest, and opened subscription-lists in our principal towns, so as really to have brought the loan home to our small capitalists, we SATURDAY, have no doubt the operation would isave been as successful here as in France. Butk then he would have displeased the great caAitalists. Routine . to got eoufined 1. the Commii ssar i a t or the Wat office. Houtine-4a slavish adhe rence to precedept, lout a pusillanimous timi4ty depavtimil from the beaten p th— perveides our w„hc4le kystem. It is the baits o f the a r iti4 Government—ssuit in some, b t in all it 4 departments. •T 1 plan adopted b)' Sit G. C. Lxwis is s follows He requires 1001. cash to be given for 1001. Three per Cent. Consols. Ho therefore in- crcasee faze orawavit tiatictual Doht tty sit-. teen millions ; but inasmuch as sixteen Mil; lions Three per Cent. Stock will fall very far short of producing sixteen millions in cash, he proposes saddling the present generation with the difference, by converting that difference into annuities terminable in thirty years. This is the main feature of his project. It has nothing of novelty to recommend it. The plan is an old one adopted frequently during the American War of Independence. He fur ther proposes that the capitalist who con tracts shall pay by stated instalments, the whole to be paid up within a year, but with out allowing the contractor to take up the whole of his Stock at the present time. Originally he appears to have contemplated the encouragement of competition by receiv ing tenders forparts of the loan; but, frightened by the menaces of the great capitalists, he changed his intentions in the Treasury Cham ber, and has limited the competition to ten ders for the whole sixteen millions, thereby virtually placing himself in the hands of Baron ROTHSCHILD. We have stated that in the year 1855 we ex peeted something new, even in the contnict ing of a loan ; and we thought, at all events, that the political axiom of unrestricted com petition might have been made applicable to, and dissipated some of the mysteries of the abstruse science of finance. Our first objec tion, then, to the present operation is that the old system of dealing only with large contrac tors has been adhered to. Enormous fortunes, it is well known, were made by such contrac tors during the late war, and every pound be yond a reasonable profit, it should be remem bered, is so much added to the debt of the country. Our second objection is that the considera tions involved in this loan are too complicated to admit of.general competition, even if ten ders for parts of it were admitted Let our readers just observe what a person intending to bid has to do. First, he has to estimate the present value of the 1001. debenture, with all the contingencies of peace and war, with all the vicissitudes in the value of money, and with all the uncertainties of the wet harvest — one-fourth at least of the capital he proposes to invest will be subject to these contingencies for nine months. Well, supposing him to have solved this nice calculation of chances, and to have arrived at the conclusion that — say 81 is the present value of the debenture, there remains 121. 10s. to be converted into an annuity of thirty years, with the contingencies of thirty years superadded. The capitalist must employ an actuary for this. No ordinary capitalist, we venture to say, is competent to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion upon so complicated a calculation. The first financial operation of Mr. GLAD STONE was unsuccessful. The first financial operation of Sir G. C. LEWIS is unpromising. EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES. IN dealing with Sir JOHN Paxtrierrox's bill, it must not be forgotten that its principles and leading features alone—not the details of the measure—are properly under consideration by Parliament. For though printed, and though the second reading be fixed for a day not now distant, it has been stated from the first, both by Sir Rats himself, and by his friends, that it will be considered together with those of Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr. MILNER °mom — the three plans being laid simultaneously before the House. Minor arrangements.thereforq-s-tbe 1