The National Register.
London, England, 1819-06-13 00:00:00

ON TOO

DEPLORABLE STATE
OF OUR
FINANCES.

Iv has often, of late, been our official duty to en-
dca•onr to direct the attention of our readers to the
deplorable state of our Finances, and to the total in-
adequacy and irtibeeility of the hands to which, in a
crisis like the present, they are so unfortunately en-
trusted. Ask from one end of the kingdom to the
other, ask among the friends or foes of Government,
and we will venture to assert that no man will be
found whose opinion on this point, if honestly given,
does not coincide with our own. But, amidst all
this universality of sentiment, a sort of apathy, aris-
ieg either from despair on one hand, or from distress
on the other, seems not much less prevalent. This
we lament to state, a strong, but alas ! a general
feature of national decay; a feature which the philo-
sophers observed, and the historians have recorded
of the declining days both of Greece and Rome.
The effect of all bad Government is to sap the foun-
dations both of public spirit and of public virtue;
and its operations are carried on, first by creating a
disgust with respect to public men and to public
measures, and a feeling, almost approximating to
indifference, as to both what they do, and what they
leave undone ; and next, a hopelessness extending
even further than the reality of the case will justify,
as to any amelioration, by whatever hands, or under
whatever guidance. All opposition is thus looked
upon by Anne as useless, and by others as the mere
etiect of a longing for place and power, as the out-
cries of a faction scrambling for loaves and fishes.
fhe mischief thus aggravated and continued, has at
last all the fruits and consequences of positive ap-
proval, and men, who are hated, mistrusted, and
despised by nineteen nut of twenty, are yet permit-
ted to pursue their career of iniquity or folly, to
exercise that public controul and to enjoy that pub-
lic patronage, which should so naturally be allotted
only to wisdom and virtue, because then they would
be wisely and virtuously employed. It is alone on
grounds such as these that any man can rationally
account for the continuance of our present rulers in
the offices they now boa And, indeed, little as
we are ourselves inclined to encourage an apathy,
from whatever source arising, wkich is in effect a
desertion of the public cause, or to agree in the
opinion that there is not abundance both of wisdom,
virtue, talent, and political experience at our dispo-
sal to form a very splendid and powerful adminis-
tration which would both maintain the rational ho.
nour, and still redeem us from disgrace and ruin ;
yet should the present schemes of Government be
realized and carried, should an additional load of
taxes to the amount of doec millions a year be sub-
mitted to, we shall ourselves be driven to the very
same state of feeling which we deplore in others,
and to say of our once happy and flourishing coon
try, " jam vero otartelaotatum eel ;" the soul has left
Its tenement, and the body waits only to be carried
forth to burial.

The evil under which wehave been long struggling,
Ens been a Tit.rationfever,a disease from which, during
the rage and tumult of hostilities, no one dared even
to hope to be relieved. But to see the blessings of
tranquillity and peace at lust restored to a patient,
suffering, and exhausted people, to have heard theca
greeting each other with the prospect of " better