The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-07 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 7, 1853.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

CONSOLIDATED FUND AND NATIONAL
DEBT REDEMPTION ACTS.
(From the Times.)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's announce-
ment of a motion to-morrow for a committee of the
whole house to consider the Consolidated Fund and
National Redemption Acts will revive many an old
reminiscence, and many a dormant train of thought,
in the elder portion of our readers. Forty years
will carry us back to the day when the National
Debt had not yet attained its present monstrous
proportion, when it was still young and intolerable,
and when every table was covered with pamphlets
on its illegal or its ruinous character, and on the
best way of getting rid of it. Most of the schemes
for its redemption were little more than repudia-
tion, in one flimsy guise or another. But the
iniquity and presumption of visiting the sins of one
generation on another, z,nd leaving to the unborn
the inheritance of a debt larger than the world had
yet seen or Conceived, was the prevailing idea of
serious pamphleteers. The utmost that the nation
could do, it was urged by a large class of financial
malcontents, was to burden the future for ten years,
or, at the utmost, twenty, that being the period
during which nature makes us guardians and trus-
tees for the rising generation. But theories and plans
fo'r paying the costs of the war and discharging our
increasing liabilities were as rife in those clays as plans
of drainage, extramural interment, life assurance,
and communieation on railways are in ours. The
debt having attained a certain colossal roundness and
perfection, and the war having happily ended, the
question of gold versus paper served for some years
to fill,up the void in financial Min dal- and from that
clay to this we have seldom been reminded of the
old controversy, except when Chancellors of the
Exchequer came forward from time to time with
the terrible announcement—terrible to many a
widow and orphan—that stockholders were to be
immediately offered their money or a lower rate of
interest. By degrees we have come down to 3 per
cent., and for many years Consols have not been
sufficiently-above par to allow any further reduc-
tion. Now, however, for many months, they have
been so much above par, or so little below it, that
it has become a question whether a bargain may
not be made with the fundholder, and whether
something may not be thrown in to make up foi
the want of a more decided premium in the market.
According to rumour, that is the interpretation of
Mr. Gladstone's announcement ; and, on the sup-
position that it is so, the judgment of the money
world has already been pronounced in its, favour in
the infallible voice of the Stock-Exchange.
Under the many contingencies that are looming
in the fundholder's future, and with the days at
hand when money may be a drug, Consols may be
considered as always trembling on the eve of con-
version. The Chancellor of the Exchequer can al-
ready borrow as much money as he likes for a
twelvemonth at 1. per cent., and what is more
m may
unquestionable
y by and by
libeketly than
hethat 2
security ? It is true that, under many circum-
stances, regularprice
for
rr
loansent.
on
a great abundance of money has a ten-
dency to raise the rate of interest. It is so in a
e
new country, with new resources continually,
opening, and with many ways presenting them-
selves by which a man trading with borrowed
capital can turn it over often enough to pay a high
interest, and accumulate a fortune besides. But
in an old country like England a great disturbance
of capital is more likely to reduce the rate of in-
terest than to raise it, and, we repeat, nothing is
less improbable than that before long-Government
may have as much money as it wants by paying
21. per cent. a-year for it. But the real hardship
will be, that when Government has almost com-
pelled the creditor to take 21. instead of 31., it will
still be unable to prevent the depreciation of the
iwr
ne
eldruuecetwea
dno s
ha
say,ci
sq up ir svlcaoet2de
inn
nn
necessitiest
theh e bargain
est
sell
capital in the market, and the creditor who has
uhmewanhy Ce
snot
in stl
lh oeblyes
are at 90, or less. Indeed, it may be naturally
supposed that a stock which pays 21. is more likely
to fall much below par than one which pays 31.
For those who buy and sell money, for those who
speculate in the funds, or who hold a few thousands
of stock on the reserve fund of commercial enter-
prise, and, still more, for those who have to live
on the interest of their money, it will always be a
very great hardship that their stock may be further
depreciated. With such a prospect as this before
us, there appears to be little doubt that a stock

1 certain to -pay 2i- per cent. for 20 years will We
valuable property than one paying 3 per cent.,
but liable to be reduced to 2 per cent., or even
lower. If rumour says true, that is the proposal
which will be made to the fundholder, and a large
proportion of fundholders will be glad to accept it.
The two conditions offered by the Government,
supposing the rumour to be correct, are the cer-
tainty of 211 per cent. for 20 years, and the certainty
of repayment at par at the end of that period, as
opposed to the chance of reduction to 2 per cent.,
and a depreciation in 1873 or 1883 to 801., or even
601. When stock paying 5 per cent. has been with-
in the memory of living men at less than 50, what
may not be the market value of stock paying 31.,
or so low as 21.? Certainly the present seems the
time for bringing the immense security of Govern-
ment to bear on the general insecurity of commer-
cial affairs. There is no class of debtor, not in-
cluding the Irish landowner, who has not been re-
cently enabled to pay off old debts with new ones
paying less interest, or to make some other advan-
tagemis bargain with his creditors. Even France
has done this in the very midst of revolutions, con-
vulsed •by factions, occupied by armies, and go-
verned by a deSpot. We have the best security in
the world, for England, so liberal and so changeable
in many respects, will fight to the last drop of its
blood to maintain its financial integrity, the real
palladium of its commercial prosperity. Mr. Glad-
stone appears so far to understand our position, and
to seize the opportunity it offers. We take the mea-
-91 9we find it, and Nye have describe_ thetproposal
Ira s; a (i agiv4nl- 4aeoti§ one tothe'' fiiiidlic del lid the.
city it appears to be thought even too advantageous,.
that is, accompanied with too much risk to the State.
It is asked, what if a large proportion of the stock-
holders should immediately accept the offer, and
Government should find itself obliged to pay them
all their debts at par in 1873, when possibly com-
mercial or political events may make repayment
difficult and costly ? It is even suggested that this
part of the bargain might be modified, with the
option on the part of the Government of paying
its debt at the end-of 20 years in 3 per cent. stock.
This may perhaps be necessary, and even with this
modification we are inclined to think the offer a
good one for the ftindholder ; but it should be re-
marked
that the bargain cannot be a very good one
for both parties at once ; and that if the State gains
present ease by a reduction of the rate of interest,
it must expect to purchase that ease by under-
taking some of the creditor's risk. The present
state of affairs is, that the State is burdened with
the payment of an immense annual interest, and
the fundholder has much uncertainty in his future
prospects, as he knows neither the rate of interest
he will receive nor the market value of his stock
twenty years hence. The proposal is and must be
a matter of " give and take." To be relieved
somewhat of its present annual payment the State
must relieve its creditor somewhat of his future
is
that lie
Govern-
ment, some
uncertainty ; but it cannot diminish his risks with-
out increasing its own, as the risks—that is the
shoulders
por-
rsoforchotahnegreTePhse mustproposalt'and
we
the fundholders will do well, thinkshould ,to accepters, and
for a present consideration, shall take a
tion of these risks on its own broad
the offer.

FOREIGN AND BRITISH SHIPPING. '
(From the Morning Post.)
It will scarcely be forgotten that, in the frequent
discussions with regard to the future of the national
policy which took place on the accession of Lord
Derby's Government to power, Mr. Gladstone
assumed to himself as a mission, not only the office
of convoying free trade safe and intact into har-
bour, but also the duty of developing in complete-
ness the initiated system. As Chancellor of the
Exchequer it has since become his peculiar province
to do this so far as concerns tke adaptation of the
financial arrangements of the country to the new
policy ; and on the 18th of the current month we
shall learn how the chiefest representative of the
traditions of Peel proposes to get over the pons
asinorwm that Mr. Disraeli was submerged in at-

tempting.
Nobody questions the difficulty of the passage.
Everybody admits that, will he nill he, be he
Peelite, Derbyite, or Whig, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer must compass it with free trade on his
back—and encumbered, too, with all the crotchets
that have been of late elicited by Parliamentaay in-
vestigations, and lie sleeping? in blue books till they
shalf be waked by the Minister moving that the
House resolve itself into a Committee of Ways
and Means. The experiment will be an interest-
ing and, possibly, a slippery one ; and the atten-
tiQn of the public has been so engrossed in watching

its coming off, that they appear almost to have
lost sight of the condition of one of our most
important branches of industry, which is daily
suffering progressive deterioration because free
trade in its completeness continues to be withheld
from it. It is not from the stirring within us of
any of the old leaven of Protection—not from any
jealousy of those who overthrew what we defended,
nor even from any anxiety to uphold, as a class
merely, the British shipowners, that we again
earnestly call attention to the rapid decrease of the
share, which, relatively to other nations, Great
Britain has possessed of the carrying trade of the
world, but because we consider that branch of in-
dustry of vital importance to the prosperity and
consequence to the United Kingdom, and deem
its conservation and protection one of the most im-
perative duties of an English Minister.
We do not propose to go over all the old ground
again ; nor is it necessary for our purpose to quote
figures and statements which we have put in evi-
dence before, and which remain unanswered, to
show that from 1848 to 1852, the relative position
of British shipping was not maintained either at
home or abroad. lc cannot be denied that, with
regard to the United States especially, and with
regard also to the most important of the European
carriers, such was the fact. That proposition, at
any rate, was not refuted ; but then we were told
that there was a new trade about to open, and to
expand into great importance, both with California
and with Australia, and that of both of these the
British shipowner would undoubtedly get the
lion's share. We expressed doubts as to such a
result being attainable ; and the reasons which we
gave for those doubts have since, we regret to ob-
serve, been entirely justified by_facts as regards
California, and the trade from the American shores
there, and from thence to the eastern seas. Look-
ing to the last published returns from the Board
of Trade, it is to be feared that, even with respect
to the trade newly created with our own colony,
we are little better off.

It appears from a comparison of the total tonnage
cleared outwards in the month of February of 1851
and 1853, and we take this month of the present
year because it was then that the Australian traffic
had attained peculiarly high development, that the
total clearances outwards in tonnage were—

British. Foreign.
In Feb., 1851 359,199, composed of 229,208 128,991
In Feb., 1853 505,438, If 297,600 207,838
Now, we ask, is that a relative ratio of progress
as between ourselves and foreign nations on which
a British public can look with satisfaction or a Bri-
tish Minister without inquietude ? Will Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Cardwell sit complacent or listless in
the face of such circumstances as . these ; and will
they make no attempt to persuade or to drive the
foreigner to grant us the reciprocity of unrestricted
competition, and render trade as free in their ports
as it is in ours ? They have a screw in the recipro-
city clause, though somewhat a rusty one, perhaps.
If negotiation and gentle requirements fail, why
not try if it will work or no ?

We have given above the gross increase of the
clearances of foreign tonnage outwards. It may be
worth while to see how that was apportioned; In
the case of Denmark, the increase has been from
6,000 to 11,000 tons ; in Prussia and the German
States, from 18,000 to 23,000 tons ; in Holland,
from 4,000 to 11,000 tons ; in Belgium, from 2,000
to 4,000 • and is the instance of the United States,
from 50,000 to 100,000 tons. .
The entries inwards present a still more remark-
able and a still more disagreeable result. They
are :

Total Tonnage. British. Foreign.
In Feb. 1851... 366,107 composed of 243,471 ... 122,631
In Feb. 1853... 457,154 „ 241,338 215,816

This increase, in nearly a duplicate ratio, appears
to have been thus distributed among foreign carry-
ing nations

Feb. 1851. Feb. 1853.
Russia 5,000
Sweden 2,000
Norway 3,000
Denmark 12,000
Prussia 6,000
Other German States 10,000
Holland 5,000
United States 46,000

Add with all this transference of traffic from the
British to the foreign carrier, the consumer gets,
we will not say no benefit, but no equivalent or
proportionate benefit, for freights are no lower than
before the repeal of the navigation laws. Now, we
take it that the questions of the relative merits of
protective and free trade systems being buried and
done with, and a very active motive for fudge in
these matters removed, no man will say that this
is a desirable state of things, or one out of which
our commercial marine is to be left to flounder as
best it may. We are quite aware that shipowners,
ship-dealers, and ship-builders aro not at this mo-
ment complaining. The shipowners' like old Ge-
neral Costigan, love to bask in a bit of sunshine
but we shall hear enough of the voice of their com-
plaining when the Australian ships find crews to
bring them home, and they are thrown suddenly in
a lump for sale or freight on the market here. But
we are not looking solely or peculiarly to them or
interests—we are looking, and we confess with
great anxiety and doubt, to what must be the fu-
ture influence of these circumstances on the posi-
tion of this country, if they are left without check
or amendment. It is idle to hope to stop their
progress by a Pilotage or a Passing Tolls Bill.