The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-17 00:00:00

THE

cient to provide the 3,500,0001. which will be
required for this object not only in the year
1858-9, but also again in the year following?
We think not. The circumstances of the
country and of all classes in it are at this
moment peculiarly unfavourable for the appli-
cation of any new modes of taxation. Neither
trade nor property could well bear them. But
this very state of things in regard to trade and
manufactures, which is a stumbling-block to a
Chancellor of the Exchequer seeking new
revenue, presents indirectly a way out of his
difficulties by other means. Money is abun-
dant among men whose business it is to deal
in it as a commodity. Stagnation of enter-
prise has made it a drug, and the CHANCELLOR
of the EXCHEQUER may have as much as he
likes on holding up his finger on as good
terms probably as a Government has ever
borrowed upon. We may regret that any-
thing should interfere with the arrangements
made by Parliament for the redemption of
debt, and we may admit that it is desir-
able that we should proceed, as was originally
proposed, annually with its progressive liqui-
dation ; but if that can only he effected by im-
posing at a most untoward moment severe
financial pressure upon the people, upon
trade and upon labour; and if, moreover, it
happens that concurrently with uneasiness in
the commercial world there exists unusual
easiness amounting to plethora in the mone-
tary world, no financial Minister of common
sense would hesitate, we imagine, which course
to take; or would turn from the simple and easy
mode of meeting his difficulties, to the com-
plicated and oppressive one, for the sake of
preserving intact the symmetry of a financial
scheme of some former year. The Exchequer
Bonds of Mr. GLADSTONE, and the payments
out of the Sinking Fund on account of the war
loans, fall due in the same years, and present
for 1858, 1859, and 1860 a heavy accumulation
of redemption. Now, surely it would be a
perfectly legitimate operation to postpone the
Sinking Fund for three years, so that it shall
not be operative till the revenue gets the ad-
vantage of the termination of the Long
Annuities, and to raise by loan a sum suffi-
cient to pay off the Exchequer Bonds, and
provide for the extraordinary expenditure
occasioned by the late exceptional events.
This seems to us an obvious and legitimate
arrangement; nor can we see that it is in any
way inconsistent with the principles estab-
lished by the soundest financiers.
The country expects with great anxiety the
statement of the Finance Minister. The ex-
perience and the discussions of the last few
years have added much to the financial know-
ledge of the public, and they now fully recog
vise the truth that a Budget is not a proper
subject for the exercise of vivid imagination
or fertile genius, and that the financial
arrangements which are most acceptable to
public feeling and most easily workable for
the public good, are those which are the most
simple and the least dependent upon esti•
mates of the future course of events. Mr.
DISRAELI is a man of sound sense as well as
of genius, and we feel sure that the lesson
which may he learnt from the brilliant finan-
cial failures of his successor will be found
not to have been lost upon him.

all the sectional politicians enumerated by
Lord DERBY in his brilliant speech on taking
office. The followers of Sir R. PEEL appa-
rently wish to play the part taken by " the
Grenvilles " in 1813. The Liverpool Ministry
had to defer much to the feelings of the House
of Commons in 1813. The removal of ancient
leaders, the quarrel between CASTLEREAGH and
CANNING, the personal jealousies of various
politicians in different parts of the House,had
for the time deranged Parliamentary action.
Recently it was shown in our columns how
much the Free-trade section and those who
truckled to it submissively had disorganized
Parliamentary action. Divided parties, sec-
tional cliques, weakened power, were features
of 1813, and some of them can be recognised
in 1858 In 1812, when Mr. PERCEVAL was
assassinated, it was thought that the junction
between Lords GREY and GRENVILLE made
them almost supreme. In 1857 Lord PALMIIILM
TON had his "immense majority." But where
is it in 1858? It is where the dictatorship of
GREY and GRENVILLE was in 1813—gone. Can
any one examining the two periods doubt
about the applicability of the precedent of
1813 ?

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