The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-14 00:00:00

our finances, and the prices of the funds at this moment,
and having confidence in the present Chancellor of the
Exchequer, he believed the present measure was not
likely, in the slightest degree, to lead to the disastrous
consequences which the noble lord seemed to anticipate.
The Earl of DERBY--I must say the noble earl has
not given the slightest answer to the objections to this
measure raised by my noble friend. My noble friend
' made no attack upon the Government, nor did he allude
to the late Chancellor of the Exchequer having, without
qualification or reserve, Jail down such a doctrine that,
under all circumstances, upon all occasions the exigen-
cies of the public service should be provided for by taxa-
tion. (Hear.) But the charge he made was not with
regard to the future, but with regard to the past, and
with- regard to the declaration of the late Chancellor of
the Exchequer that it had been distinctly falsified. Now
to those objections of my noble friend the only answer
given by the noble earl is, that he is not prepared to
say what the present Chancellor of the Exchequer may
bring forward, and the noble earl says the amount of
Exchequer bills now proposed is not larger by about
100,0001. than was proposed in former year. Now, the
amount of Exchequer-bills has nothing to do with it ; the
question is, whether in this bill you are not studiously
confounding two descriptions of Exchequer-bills, and
so practically falsifying the declaration of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer last year ? With regard to Exchequer-
Londe, you might just as well say, when a young gen-
tleman
spends about double his income, and he has to
raise money by bills, that he has a right to put himself
forward aria model of prudence arid frugality. He thought
the noble lord and the country had a right to ask whe-
ther the Government adhered, or pretended to have
hitherto adhered, to the principle laid down, that the
expenses of the war should be paid out of the revenue of
the year, or whether they would be obliged to have re-
course—under a great national exigency, and during an
euorraohs expenditure to be incurred for a great national
object—to the same system and take the same course
which all previous Governments had taken—to throw a
portion, not the whole, of the expenses upon posterity,
or to follow the impracticable measure of providing for
the expenses of the war out of
the revenue of the year ?
—whether they would with it in the shape of a
permanent debt, or make it a debt spreading over a great
number of years, say 20, 30, or 40 years ; or so deal
with the expenses as to overwhelm the people of this
country ? His noble friend had complained that the
Government bad departed from the principle laid down
last year, and had endeavoured to conceal that departure
• from Parliament ; and, at the same time, he called
upon the Government to say whether they intended to
I depart from that principle, and to act frankly and hon-
estly, and to avow and state to the country that they
intended to depart from that principle—a principle which
he had always considered to be impracticable.
The Duke of ARGYLL said—The great question to
determine was this—whether the Government laid down
last year a great principle in conducting the war from
which they would not depart. He denied that that was
so. What Mr. Gladstone said was, that it was wrong
to rush into the'system of loans at the commencement
of the war. He said it would be unworthy of the re-
sources of the country to resort at once to a system of
loans at the outset, and in compliance and in fulfilment
of that principle, he asked the Houses of Parliament to
consent to a large increase in the taxation. That con-
sent was given. The dispute which had arisen seemed
0 to him to be a ridiculous arid a trivial one—it was as
to whether a million or a million and a half borrowed

was a loan cr not. He maintained that, if they suc-
ceeded in proving that this addition of a million and a
half to the funded or unfunded debt acquired the cha-
racter of a loan, it formed no reason for charging the
right lion: gentleman with departing from the principle
laid down—of raising the amount required by taxation
and not a loan. But these speeches, he considered,
were anticipatory in their character, and had been
made with the intention of extracting from the Go-
vernment some information respecting the forth-
coming budget. (Earl Derby dissented.) The no-
ble earl certainly wished to know if the principle
which had been adopted would be departed from
during the war. He considered that there had been
no departure which could justify the language which
had been used—that the policy of the Government was
tortuous, or that the Government could be accused of
not pursuing the principle laid down la-t year.
After a few words from Earl GREY,
The bill was read a third time and passed.
Their lordships adjourned at ten minutes to seven.