The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-23 00:00:00

his eyes against the merits of the leading principles of that
policy. It would be a great misfortune to the country if
the present amendment was earned.
Mr. CAIRNS objected to the proposal of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to raise the resources for carrying on the
war year by year within the year ; and he objected to the
taxation by which he proposed to raise these resources.
Who, he asked, were the persons to be permanently bene-
fitted by the war? Those who will come hereafter, and
they should, in his opinion, pay a share of the burden.
But, if the expenses of the war were to be raised each year,
he protested against this being done by doubling the in-
come tax, with all its inequalities.
Mr. JOHN Iit'GREGOR approved of the principle of
borrowing money for short periods, and paying the ex-
penses of each year of the war by the year's taxes. Had
that course been adopted daring the last war, the money
of the State would have been expended as economically as
that of a private individual. With regard to the conver-
sion of stocks last year, he maintained that at the time
that it was proposed the state of the money market was
such as to warrant the Chancellor of the Exchequer in
making the proposal ; and he denied that after the termi-
nation of the war, and the return of prosperity, the coun-
try would have lost one shilling by the transaction. The
present moderate proposal ought to be at once accepted.
He characterised the opposition to it as factious, and said
that the amendment had nothing to do with the financial
position of the country, but was and would be considered
by the country as a vote of want ce confidence in the mea-
sures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "Whatever
might be the views of a certain portion of that house, how-
ever, he was convinced that the country would support the
finance minister, anti would approve of his meeting the ex-
penses of the war without entailing heavy debts upon
posterity.
Mr. T. HANKEY sail that after listening with great at-
tention to the speech of the hon member for Huntingdon,
he was quite at a loss to understand his motive in proposing
the amendment with which he had concluded.He (Mr
Hankey) was anxious to avoid any expression of opinion
n
the part of thecommittee which should cripple the action of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or should declare that
the mode of borrowing money which he proposed to adopt
was injurious or undesirable. He had never been able to
understand why the Ministers of this country had so long
debarred themselves from raising money by loans for a li-
mited period on the system which had been pursued with
so much advantage by railway companies, and which was
a system acted on by the Governments of all countries ex-
cept our own. He rejoiced that the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer had at last adopted a system which he believed
would be most beneficial to the country—that of borrowing
for a short and limited time money which he had shown
the house that he should have the means of repaying from
the income to be derived from taxes which he intended to
impose, and which he (Mr. Hankey) understood the house
was not unwilling to sanction. If he had the means of
doing this, he (Mr. Hankey) thought it was a most proper
course for him to adopt, and he hoped that the house
would not throw any difficulties in the way of his carrying
out such a measure.
In compliance with repeated calls, the bell was rung for
a division. After it had been ringing some time, and
when a considerable number of members had entered the
house,
Mr. DISRAELI rose, and was received with cheers and
laughter. He said—Mr. Bonverie—Sir, I did expect that
some member of the Government would perhaps have re-
plied to the motion made by a most important member of
the house, who is, I think, at all times and on all subjects de.
serving of the attention of a Government —(cheers)—and who
to-night spoke upon a subject upon which he addressed the
house with all the influence which naturally results from his
pursuit, his character, and his ability. I think lam not say-
ing too much in saying that, though the great fault of his
eloquence is the rarity of his appeals, which we all regret,
on no occasion has he addressed either yourself or the chair
on which he has produed a greater effect, or more completely
justified the step which be has taken. (Hear.) I should
myself have willingly listened to the answer of the Govern-
ment to the objections to the motion which is now before
the house on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
but I hope the committee will excuse me if on this occasion
I take the liberty of making some remarks upon the sub-
ject before the house. An hon. gentleman who has just
addressed the housestold us that it is not upon a mere reso-
lution moved in committee that the house has to decide,
but that it has indeed to decide upon the whole financial
policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I was not my-
self disposed to view the question in that light, but at the
same time I am not prepared to shrink from that discussion
if it is the mood of the committee that we should enter into
it. Sir, I conceive that the demand which the Chancellor
of the Exchequer has made upon the committee to-night
has in a great degree resulted from the principles upon
which he has conducted his finance. I cannot agree with an
hon. gentleman who has recently addressed the house that
we have before us only an affair of detail, and not an affair of
principle. I am willing, therefore, to argue the case on the
broadest grounds, and to take the more comprehensive issue. ' ,
I think that the conduct of our finances by the right hon.
gentleman has been from the first erroneous, and I wish to
give to the committee, with as much brevity as I can, the
reasons why I think the administration of the finances by
the right hon. gentleman has been erroneous, and has been,
in consequence of those errors, injurious to the country.
Sir, I think that in the first year of the management of the
finances by the right hon. gentlemen—the management
which has led to the resolutions now before the committee
—it is not difficult to point out a variety of courses that
he has pursued which he was not justified in pursuing.
One advantage that we have in speaking upon these sub-
jects now is, that that which a year ago was abstruse to
the majority of hon. members—which even a couple of
months ago was not easy of immediate apprehension—has
really, by frequent discussions, become so familiar to every
gentleman that it is not necessary for me to dwell upon
these points at that length which on previous occasions
perhaps it was my duty to do. Now the first error of the
right hon. gentleman has been touched tome to-night by
the hon. member for Huntingdon, and was frequently re-
ferred to in the course of this discussion, and that was one
which has been constantly brought before the considera-
tion of the house and the committee, namely, his lowering
of the rate of interest upon Exchequer-bills. The right
hon. gentleman has on several occasions, and in that speech
in which I may say he introduced the resolutions now
under discussion, vindicated the course which he in-
teneded to take. I don't think that 1 am giving a par-
tial opinion if I say that the vindication of the right
hon. gentleman of that step has not, I think, prover}
satisfactory to this house or to the country. taro doubt
the observation pf the right hon. gentleman, that in
the month of March the very fact that Exchequer-bills
were sent in, not for payment, but for conversion, is a
seeming vindication, as he states, of the measure that was
taken. No doubt on the first blush of the matter that is an
apparent answer to the charge that we had made. But
really it is a superficial one, and has been noticed to-night
by the hon. member for Huntingdon, as might have been
expected from s gentleman of his experience and acquain-
tense with the subject. It is not immediately that the
commercial community call on the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer to pay his bills in money ; but although for a
moment this indulgence was extended to the right hon.
gentleman, the consequence of his conduct was so appa-
rent when at a later date, but still not remote period
a large amount of the balances in the Exchequer were
called for in the most inconvenient manner to defray the
obligations resulting from his policy. Well, sir, I shall not
dwell upon another point, which I only notice that the
house may bear it in its mind. It is a fact, not to be disputed
that the right hon gentleman did think it a wise course to
reduce the interest upon the public securities when the
bankers were raising the interest upon private securities,
and when every symptom which I think ought to have
guided the right hon. gentleman--such as the fall in the
funds, which the right hon. gentleman will no longer deny
--the double rise of the rate of interest in the Bank—the
fall in the premium on his own Exchequer-bills—must all
have warned him that a considerable change was taking
place in the fortunes of the money market. I think the
reason given by the hon. gentleman the other night which
he drew from the course of the exchanges affected by our
Indian trade, however good so far as it went, of a very
limited and partial character. There is no doubt that the
right hon. gentleman, as well as other persons, was misled by
the great increase in the production of the precious metals,
and that he did not give credit for that remarkable increase
in our commercial transactions which was the consequence
of the discovery of that increase of the precious metals, and
which was an increase in greater proportion than the increase
in those metals. Sir, I am quite willing to share the blame
of having formed an erroneous opinion on the same subject,
of which the right hon. gentleman of course has reminded
me. I answered the right hon. gentleman that it was my
opinion—an opinion that I had formed as to the low rate of
interest, and in which I was fortified by high authorities,
and the right hon. gentleman said—" Did not you have
these opinions, and of what use are opinions unless they
are acted upon?" But although that was my opinion in the
month of December, still I do think that in the month of
February, if I had been aware that the funds had fallen 1,
per cent., if I had been aware that the Bank had raised the
rate of interest twice in the preceding month, and aware also
of the great efflux of the precious metals—that whatever
might be my theoretical opinions formed from study, and
although I thought that that might have been in the long
run justified by experience and the course of events—l thinkI
should have had sufficient caution and prudence not to act
then upon that opinion. Under these circumstances,
refusing so to act, I do not think I would have conducted
andin
ducted
myself in a manner that would have given foundation for
the belief that I was insincere in the opiniohnasile
beenhad ytehne-
tured to express. Well, I consider this to
first great fault in the management d
ofealin
ht at first si
year 1853—1 mean the incautious
,g w finnan
i thc es t
hien the
u
funded debt of the country. And although,
the consequences which !mimed fro that step may not
have been so apparent•as they have m since proved to be, I
still believe that that must be accounted a very great error.
Sir, the second great mistake which the right hon. gentle-
man, has made in the administration of our
somewhat finances—l
p danticallam
sure he will pardon myly
through this catalogue, but oil
am g e
obliged now, from an ac-
cident which we all deplore, to a
answer in some degree a
made some time ago, and it is but due to the right
speech
hon. gentleman and myself—and I do not shrink from the
task—l say the second great fault of the right hon. gentle-
man in the administration of the finances in 1853, was
that celebrated scheme of conversion which has occupied
the attention of the country so much, and also that of the
committee this evening. The vastness of that scheme is
sometimes forgotten, because circumstances prevented
only a very comparatively minor portion having been
fulfilled, or attempted to be fulfilled. But I must
again remark that the whole principles upon which
that scheme of conversion, which might haze been ap-
plied to the whole amount of the public debt, was calcu-
lated, were, in my mind, fallacious and contradictory
principles. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman has
reproached me and others because, in the month of
March, when he brought forward his conversion scheme,
we warned him of the impolicy of his greater scheme, and
dwelt little upon the inconvenience that might accrue from
the failure of his minor project Now, sir, Ido not shrink
in the least from the opinion that I then gave, that it was
extremely unwise to bind this country up in engagements
which were to last forty yea• s' to ensure the stipulation of
a certain fixed rate of interest, whether it were 3 per cent.,
or 2A per cent., I should almost be tempted to go further—
I say that the principle of an arrangement of a duration
such as was proposed by the right hon. gentleman was in
my mind a most imprudent one, and one which, whatever
may be the rate of interest ruling in this country at any
time, ought not under any circumstances to be sanctioned.
Sir, the right hon. gentleman reproached us that did
not w'
remind him of the inconvenience that might arise to the
Treasury from the failure of the smaller portion of his con-
version scheme, namely, the necessity of having to pay on
the holders of South Sea Annuities. I think Inlay.lre
the vindication of hon. gentlemen on this side of . tigdadirre.
to the hon. and learned member for W
allingf
A Mali* who has laid beforolho hew web apple quo*