The Express.
London, England, 1853-04-23 00:00:00

THE WRIT FOR BARNSTAPLE.

On the motion n;/11;.0:8; ''' '''' Ma writ for this
borough was suspendtd for six weeks.
The boys adjourned at a quarter-put 12.

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L')NDOP, SATURDAY, APRIL 23.

Lan night the House of Commons, after a sitting
of several hours in committee on the Government
scheme about the National Debt, got through all the
clauses of the new Bill for that purpose. The dis-
cussion arose chiefly on the second clause, the first
having passed without challenge. This fint clause
enacts that the " Annuity on the Capital Stock of
the South Sea Company and certain 3 per cent.
Stocks—namely, the Old and New South Sea
Annuitie., Bank Annuities of 1726, and Three per
Cent Annuities, 1751." amounting together to ten
millions sterling, shall be paid off. This point, then,
may be regarded as settled, unless the improba'de
occurrence of a defeat on the third reading should

The second clause was challenged by Sir FITZROY
KELLY, who placed before the notice of the House
the objections first urged when Mr. GLADSTONE
gave his scheme to the public. The three alter-
natives offered to the holders of stock to be
commuted are said by their author to be
equal the one to the other—but they are not so:
and in the disparity one becomes more mis-
chievous than its brethren by the influence it will
have in adding to the sum total of our huge National
Debt. It is at once a great financial sin and a great
political folly, to seek to sink us deeper in the mire
of debt by any plan professing for its object the
lightening of that Debt. In the present state of our
money market in relation to the supply of gold, and
to the bourses of the world, there can be little
doubt that English Exchequer Bonds would float in
large quantities at 2i per cent. —if not at
less, and with so great and important a fact before
us, it shows great folly to take more than is need-
ful, from a purse so well squeezed already u that of
JOHN Bum. The proposal to increase the debt is, as
we were the first to declare, a great blunder; but it is at
the same time one capable of excision altogether from
the scheme of which it is a portion, without any
danger to that scheme itself. If a man having a
commodity to sell, for which there was a great de-
mand, went into the market with three different
prices, at which he was ready to dispose of his
wares, the buyers would, of course, elect to plrehase
at the one most favourable to themselves. Nobody
would give the high price while they could deal at
the low, and if the seller traded thus with his own
wares, people would think him a simpleton—if with
the wares of others, they might apply to him some
harsher term. Yet Mr. GLADSTONE goes to
market with the National Debt people are
willing to buy at fair figures—whereupon three prices
are named nominally alike, but one of them in reality
calculated to lead the proprietor of the stock, Mr.
BULL, still further on that fatal way where the sum
total of debt is said to be "of no consequence." On
this some sound financiers cry " Hat," and say,
" Have Exchequer Bonds, have a Two-and-a-Half
per Cent. stock, or, if a third alternative is impera-
tive, adopt some wise suggestion for Terminable An- I
unities. But get rid of the offer of 1101. for 100/.
Have no increase of the Debt under a scheme
nominally for lessening it." Let all cleverness for
conversion be kept strictly within the stern limits of
national prudence and honour. " It'sonly just sign-
ing your name across this stamp—a mere form," says
Mr. Rook, when coaxing Mr. Pigeon to accept his
first accommodation bill. "The mere form," how-
ever, has a knack of maturing into copies of write,
judgment debts, execution., and other little et cetera.
that forerun repudiation and Insolvent Courts. And
so with this part of the Financial Scheme. It
may suit some politicians to say, " It's a mere
form " to add a few millions to our great Incubus,
but other financiers and politicians see such things
happily in another light, and are prepared, when
operating for the reduction of the Debt, to oppose all
steps that may really add to it. Mr. Pigeon's accommo-
dation bill system is not one to be followed by a great
and wealthy nation, with gold upheaping in its Bank
cellars, and its trade in a state of prosperity almost
unequalled in the history of the world. No. We can
act upon the Debt, and let us do it properly. Let
us adopt the two wisest of Mr. GLAthrrones schemes,
putting the other in abeyance, at all events till the
others have been tried. The Exchequer Bond pro-
puition is excellent, though it has no originality.
Such securities hays answered well in America and
elsewhere, and we may well try them in England. So
also in our present state of credit may we venture
on the establishment of a Two-and-a-Half per Cont.
stock. And here for the present at all eventh let the
experiment stop, unless we try the third plan wisely
put forward by Mr. J. B. Sierra, a practical and suc-
cessful man of business, whose views on all such
matters are at the least as well worth consideration
as those of a theoretical politician like the present
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.

In closing these few words on the measure in its
present stage, we may repeat distinctly again that
we commend the object the Government have in
view, and two-thirds of their plan for working it out ;
but being no 'tee, and supporting them, not (or
their own bakes as a doubtful coalition. bat orily in
so far es they offer to do the public work in a fair
way, we take exception on that point where their
schwas ad the national welfare seem likely to part
codtpany. Our political motto is " 'rho com-
ma good," and hence our vote and voice go
against adding to the National Debt. With the
querulous patina tricks of the Ex-Protectionist
member for Backs we have no sympathy whatever.
Indeed it is clear enough that Mr. DissAm's
meagre speech last night can do him no credit, and
the Ministerial Scheme no harm; and when he
impotently talked of upsetting the plan altogether
because one mistaken element was found within it
his hearers could only draw conclusions little compli-
mentary to the Er-Chancellor, as compared with his
successor in Downing-street. The only division
that took place last night showed the temper of the
House on thispoint.