The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-18 00:00:00

774 scorn at the transcient successes of his cha racterless career. An aristocratic wit once well said of him, Palmerston never knows what he is going to " do, nor does auy one else ; and he sets about " pretending to do it as if what he never " thought of was on the point of being done r There we have the essence of the man always assuming the conventional tone of the time, taking through life the successive hues of the ten Ministries of the Duke of PORTLAND, Mr. PERCEVAL, Lord LIVERPOOL, Mr. CANNING, Lord GODERICH, the Duke of WELLINGTON, Earl GREY, Lord MELBOURNE, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and the Earl of ABERDEEN ! That such an incarnation of the routine and the official pre judices of Downing-street should be accepted as the chief of our English Liberal party, is the most ludicrous bit of real history in modern annals. But its comic effect is marred when wo recollect that when England had a facetious Prime Minister before, the pleasantry of Lord NORTH did not atone for the calamity of public affairs. So, even amidst all the jests of our Premier, as the state of Europe becomes complicated, people feel doubly grave, even after laughing at the ridiculous facts that a disguised old Tory should dominate a Liberal party, and that the first Lord of the Treasury in time of war should be only first-rate in the character of " the Comic Old Gentleman." FINANCIAL FALLACIES. THE state of English finance seems alarming ; all the more so, because the danger, perceived by few, is fully appreciated by scarcely any one. Doubtless, money can always be raised, at higher or lower interest as the case may be, for purposes of war. Doubtless, the civil administration of the country will go on as usual, and the business of private life be but slightly interrupted, whether peace be made in the autumn, or fighting be indefinitely pro tracted. Of present disturbance, present suf fering, there is as little as is compatible with the carrying on of any war whatever. But it is in that very circumstance that our peril lies. The disease is fatal, because painless. There is nothing to call attention to the symp toms, until the mischief has grown past cure. All seems to go on pleasantly, until the ma chine breaks down altogether, or comes to a dead standstill. In other countries, and in other times, the case has been quite contrary. Prussia towards the close of FREDERICK'S seven years' war was reduced to the last extremity of dis tress; the fields untilled, entire towns de stroyed, fifteen thousand houses burnt to the ground, the population diminished ten per cent. in six years, the cattle swept away, famine and pestilence everywhere, the cur rency debased, the law absolutely in abey ance. Such were the fruits of the most patriotic devotion, directed by the most splen did military genius, and rewarded by complete succ3ss. France under NAPOLEON lost millions of men, millions of treasure ; was left in 1815 weak, poor, disorganised, seeming unlikely to rally during many years. In the same series of revolutionary campaigns, all Germany was overrun, and almost every continental nation endured extreme hardships. But the evil done ended, or nearly so, with the generation in whose time it began. Even before FREDERICK'S death, Prussia had risen to the condition of a prosperous and powerful State; the BOURBONS had not been driven off the French throne, before the losses of France in men and treasure were repaired. How stands it with us now? England is carrying on distant campaigns at an expense which equals, if it does not exceed, that of the costliest period of the great Revolution struggle, when half Europe was in her pay, and more than 300,000 British subjects were actually bearing arms. In round numbers, she is spending 100,000,0001. per annum, instead of the peace estimate of 55,000,0001. ; and of this extra load of 45,000.0001., considerably less than one-third, or 15,000,0001., is paid for by the present gene ration. Taking the entire national expendi ture together, and assuming the continuance THE PRESS. of the present rate of outlay (is its diminution probable ?), we are defraying two-thirds of our current expenses out of income, and the remaining third mit 01 capital. In other words, we stan4 exactV in the position of a landed proprieter, w having an es worth 4,000/. a year, already hea vllp mortgapd, is living at the rate of 1,500 . That is, without abatement or exag geration, the present financial posture of England. "But," It will be argued, " you " must allow for the necessities of war. A " nation engaged in fighting its neighbours " cannot avoid spending more than its in " come : a few years of peace will set the " balance straight again." Will they? That is exactly the question at issue. If war were reckoned on as a casualty certain to recur at intervals more or less distant—if, for instance, we calculated, as reasoning from past expe rience we fairly might, on one year of war for every two of peace ; and if a proportionate attempt were accordingly made in peace time to reduce the capital of the debt—then it would be good logic and good sense to argue, " Never " mind the incurred debt; ten years of peace will " set it right." But no such reduction has been, is, or probably will be, attempted. Popular feeling runs strongly against it ; the experiment, once tried, had to be abandoned, and that decision, wisely or unwisely, has ever since been regarded as final. Consequently we are in this position, that, while every fresh war certainly augments the debt, the intervening periods of peace do not diminish it. Its growth, therefore, has become, not a matter of speculation, but of certainty; it may be faster or slower, but the doubt is only as to rate of increase, not at all as to the fact of such increase. Here another defence is inter posed. " Look," we are told, "at the immense " modern development of British manufac " tures and commerce. True, the burdens of " 1850 are in themselves as heavy as those of " 1820 ; but, relatively to the power of the tax " payer to bear them, they have diminished " nearly one-half within the memory of middle " aged men. What has happened once may, " nay must, happen again. Granted that the " debt fifty ydiirs hence will be 1,200 instead of " 800 millions. England, publicly and pri " vately, will be half as rich again as now; and " so her liabilities bear only the present pro " portion to her means of discharging them. " Read the prophecies of ruin in which eigh " teenth-century financiers used to indulge. " Note how each successive increase from 50 " to 100, from 100 to 200 millions, was pointed " at as the beginning of a monetary crisis, the " sure forerunner of approaching bankruptcy. " Have these croakings come true ? and, if " not, why should yours be more worthy of " respect '?" We allow our sanguine friend to state his argument in extenso, because it has consider able plausibility in its favour, and is not, indeed, devoid of some greatly-diluted admix ture of truth It is the fact that danger, even ruin, was predicted from the debt at a time when it had not reached one-fourth its present magnitude. It is the fact that, notwithstand ing those prophecies, national wealth, popula tion, and power, have enormously increased. Such experience is not without its weight; and no doubt it throws on us the burden of proving, or of attempting to prove, that a marked difference exists between the state of things in the last century, and that which we see round us. To be brief, the question resolves itself into the follow ing:—Can we reckon, with anything like cer tainty, on the increase of such industrial im provements as have taken place within the last 100 years, so that the advance in commer cial wealth in future to be anticipated shall bear a fair proportion to that which we and our immediate predecessors have seen ? If this query be not answered in the affirmative, the argument founded on past good fortune falls to the ground. In that case, the circum stances which have saved us are confessedly exceptional, and form no precedent. But if the more sanguine view be taken, some pre liminary objections must be disposed of, to which we at least see no sufficient reply. For upwards of 2,000 years no advance had been made in mechanical science which could com pare to the invention of the steam-engine. SATURDAY, That discovery, for practical purposes, dates back less than a century. Can we reasonably, in a mat* where iatioj safety is at stake, count upoti the oirtainty of 'imother such ad vance being made in our time? We do not ask whether it is poisible—tliat may well be ; but is it probable ? Oan it iv any stretch of a sanguine fancy be ileemod certain ? For surely, in such a matter, mere hope and trust, without something firmer to rest on, are not sufficient. Again, assuming even so much, will the discovery (be it what it may) be made by an Englishman? Of steam power, England has enjoyed, partly owing to priority of know ledge, partly to natural circumstance, a virtual monopoly extending over many years. That is an accident which cannot be expected to recur. It is almost certain that, in the present state of European communication no industrial inven tion will be long confined to one country. Some years back an idea was rife among men of science that electricity might be substituted as a moving and working power for steam. The experiments made with that view proved a failure. But their success was a fair subject of experiment; had they succeeded, not only would another nation have preceded us in mechanical enterprise, but that great source of English commercial wealth, our coal-landm would have lost half their value for industrial purposes. In truth, if all chances come to be reckoned up, it may turn out that from the progress of practical science we have as a nation more to fear than to hope. But, not pressing that argument, the undisputed facts stand thus : It is improbable that within the next cen tury another discovery equal in its effect on mechanical science to the invention of the steam-engine will occur. It is improbable, in that event, that the dis covery in question, even if made in England, will be long confined to one country. It is improbable, both the former conditions being granted, that the natural resources of the country will be developed by it, as, from our superiority in coal and iron, they have been by the steam-engine. Now, put these three improbabilities toge ther, and apply the ordinary calculus of chances. If each event singly be as likely to happen as not—if the chances of its happening or not happening be equal, the chance of ail three happening is as one to eight ! Yet no one will affirm that we have estimated the probabilities too low—rather the reverse. And unless this slight chance become a certainty— unless this bare, remote possibility be realised as a fact—the precedent of the last century does not apply, the encouragement which we derive from it is a delusion, the argument we base on it fallacious, and England is squan dering treasure actually hers with a reckless improvidence generated by the supposed pos session of au inexhaustible supply, which in the hour of need will fail, and leave her bankrupt. The present loss is certain, real, tangible ; the future compensatiori doubtful, almost imaginary. EAST INDIA (TORTURE). Tux Parliamentary paper thus headed is one of great importance, though containing the correspondence with the Madras Government only—the Report of the Commissioners, with its appendices, not being given in this selec tion. Comparatively slender, however, as are the materials thus placed at our disposal, a great deal of authentic information may be gained from it on the subject of India and its misgovernment by the East India Company. The fact is, that in striving to hide as much as possible the deformities of one part of the system they have exposed those of others ; and these, in our brief review of the paper under examination, we shall not fail to notice. The first point we learn from this document is a confirmation of our surmise that the official credit of this exposure is wholly and solely due to the Governor of Madras, Lord HARRIS. It is true that Sir CHARLES WOOD ordered an inquiry, but iu such a shape as 6 must have proved ineffectual. Lord HARRIS had, however, anticipated the order by the