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

and known only in history—which is brought about by a
general European war. These are the grounds on which
the proposal of the Government rests. Is this, then, really
to be called a loan, dr not' What lays the hon. member
for Huntingdon ? He undertakes to define a loati, and he
defines it in such a manner that his definition absolutely
excludes everything known by the name of a loan in this
house. He says it is somethinc, which, in some form or
other, you are to repay. Well,° that is precisely what a
loan in this country is not. For if you were to give a de-
finition of a loan in this country, it means a sum of money
taken on condition of paying for it a perpetual annuity,
but upon the condition that the lender has no right to re-
claim it.

Mr. BARING remarked that what he said was that a
loan was a sum of money for which the lender got some
return. He got a return in the form of interest.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—Then it
is obvious that the word " reture " is a very ambiguous
word. It is quite obvious that it was the natural inter-
pretation of it to suppose that it meant a return of the
capital borrowed. However, that is really a mere question
of words, and nothing turns upon it. You will not dis-
pute that Exchequer-bills are not a loan. If you describe
them as a loan you are playing with words. They are a
temporary borrowing of money. (Loud laughter.) Well,
Ido not wish to quarrel abort; a question of terms. If
you choose to say that Exchequer-bills are a loan, then
I must call on you to be tried by that principle, and in
that case what in the world is meant by those who
charge me from the other side with having pro-
m raisedised on the 16th March that no loan should be at
the very time when I had proposed to raise 1,750,d00/. by
Exchequer bills? (Hear.) I pass away now from the word
loan. These Exchequer-bonds you may call a loan or not.
They are not the creation of new stock. They are not, of
necessity, the contracting of a debt permanent in its form
and character. That with which you should compare, if
you wish to understated their nature, is the unfunded debt
of the country. They belong to the unfunded debt of the
country, only they are in a form more permanent than
Exchequer- bills. That is the nature of the plan we pro-
pose, with a view to provide for the interval before the
taxes can be realised, and with a view to give that large
command of money which in such an exigency as the pre-
sent the Government may require, without asking you to
place in our hands the power to raise a sum much larger
than we should otherwise have demanded. It is not the
sum that is immediately wanted. It is not the sum which
is required for the services that have been stated to you
in the form of estimates. It is both to anticipate taxes
and to give an amFle margin to Parliament and to Govern.
ment for whatever services the course of the financial year
may bring into view. Wel:, that is the view of the motion
that is before the committee. And now I ask is it stated
that these Excheuer-bonds are an undesirable form of
security ? For noqw, having described the motion, I must
come to the consideration of what is the nature of the
amendment, and this, I am bound to say, is the part of
my case which I enter upon under a sense of the greatest
difficulty. It was with the utmost curiosity I listened to
the hon. gentleman when he came to that part of his speech
—a part which I must say stood in strange contrast with
the rest. Nothing could be more effective than that part
of the hon. gentleman's speech in which he was criticising
my operations —nothing more limping than the argument
of the hon. gentleman when he described and defined his
own amendment. Does he, or does he not, mean to tell us
that Exchequer-bonds—that is to say, documents of the
nature of Exchequer-bills, but current for a longer period
—does he mean, I say, to tell us that the opinion of the
city of London is adverse to the creation of such a secu-
rity? The hon. gentleman carefully avoided making any
such assertion. It is very well for the right hon. gentle-
man opposite (Mr. Disraeli) to refer to the various classes
of wild animals with whom, according to his own account,
he has been in correspondence? (Laughter.) The right
hon. gentleman having favoured the committee with au
account of the information which has been privately im-
parted to him as a matter of favour, I possibly may also not go
far wrong if I acquaint tee committee with certain infor-
mation that has been imparted to me as a matter of favour.
It is to this effect :—That some of those letters which
are sent out from the Bank—l apprehend as a matter of
form on all such occasions, and before the payment of the
deposit, which is the decisive time for determining whe-
ther the transaction shall go on—were purchased at a low
rate by gentlemen, who did it with a view to send them
to the right hon. gentleman, who, they were pretty cer-
tain, would turn them to the best account in the House of
Commons. That is the counter-information which has
reached me through some of the private channels of infor-
mation to which the right hon. gentleman has referred.
But does he, any more than the hon. member for Hunt-
ingdon, state that the Exchequer-bonds are a kind of se-
curity which has been condemned by public opinion in the
city of London? I claim no credit for the invention of
these securities. Their creation was recommended to me
by persons of great weight, with whom the hon. member
is in daily communication. My belief is, that it is a very
rational and convenient kind of security ; and that al-
though of course there are difficulties in the establishment
of a novel kind of security in the London money market,
which make the course of such a transaction less smooth
than if we were dealing with matters entirely known and
usual, yet I do not hesitate to express my belief that pub-
lic opinion is in favour of the creation of such a stock.
What, then, does the hon. member for Huntingdon mean
by this motion ? Does he mean a vote of want of confi-
dence in the Government? He did not say that he meant
a vote of want of confidence, and I will not discuss it on
that ground, because the right hon. gentleman opposite
said it was idle to treat it as a matter of want of confidence.
He said the committee had a perfect right to pass a judg-
ment—and so I agree with him, it has—upon the means
proposed by Government—for what? Not the means
proposed by Government to meet the exigencies of the
case, for that has been done by the taxes which have is-
ceived the sanction of the house—but to make a temporary
provision in anticipation of the proceeds of those taxes.
What, then, does the motion mean? The hon. member
for Huntingdon does not say that we are making an un-
reasonable demand—that we are asking too much ; nor
does he deny that the taxes will have to be anticipated by
some provision in the way of ready money. He referred
to Sir H. Parnell, who states in his admirable and useful
work on finance that oue great reason for reducing a large
unfunded debt was, that at the commencement of a war
it deprived Government of the command over Exchequer-
bills, until the war taxes should become productive. That
is precisely the case with reference to which this pro-
posal is brought forward. The honourable gentleman,
then, does net refuse it because the sum asked for
is too large—he does not venture to condemn Exche-
quer tonds, or to say that that is an inconvenient form
of security, or unacceptable to the capitaliste of London.
Ile has not stated that I am wrong in asking for Exche-
quer-bonds, instead of Exchequer bills. I heard the hon.
member, indeed, say at one part of his speech that the
money might have been raised by Exchequer-bills if I had
not destroyed the market by injurious measures. Well,
now, the hon. gentleman not having told us in plain terms
what his amendment did mean, I am obliged to get at an
affirmative proposition by showing what it does not mean.
It does not mean that we should have raised the money by
Exchequer-bills, because he said that we might have done
it if we had not spoiled the market ; and, of course, if the
market was spoiled, it is clear that we could not take this
course. He does not say that we ask too much ; and while
asking you to condemn the issue of Exchequer-bonds by
his motion, he does not think fit to say that they are a
form of security of which he disapproves, or that they are
a form of security disapproved of iu the city of London.
(Haar.) Well, then, what is the meaning of the amend-
ment ? I must say that lam only aware of one meaning
it can have. It appears to me, after watching the debate
carefully, that the meaning of the amendment is thatthere
should be a loan in the ordinary sense of the word—that
there should be a creation of stock. I think that is the
inference to be drawn from the'fip3ech of the hon. gentle-
man ; indeed, I think it was declared with tolerable plain-
ness and ingenuousness by him. It apj eared still more
clearly in the course of the debate, for the hon. member
for Belfast (Mr. Cairns) stated that he thought there
should be an equitable adjustment of bur lens between
ourselves and posterity. Well, sir, I was very much struck
by that phrase "equitable adjustment." It seems I was
wrong in the conjecture I repeated from others with re-
spect to the birth of the phrase " heaven-born." Let us see
if I shall be more happy in tracing this phrase to its origin.
I think it was a phrase invented by Mr. Cobbett, and in-
tended to describe the terms on which what is familiarly
called the sponge should be applied to the national debt—it
meant with him the composition which the nation should
make with its creditors ; and now the hon. member for
Belfast proposes an "equitable adjustment" of burdens
between the present generation and posterity, and I think
did pretty well correspond, as to its inequality,
NhviisthPin the idea of Mr. Cobbett, for his plan was simply to
borrow in the money market whatever you may require for
the expenses of the war. Well, that is the plan of the
hon. gentleman the member for Belfast. The right hon.
opposite held, as I thought, very much the same
I think he said it was better, if we wanted
money, to raise it in the usual manner;
andto
that he thought we should follow as much as possible
lgaenngtul
raiseersn ig ea. n
the precedents in our possession. I could not help being
struck on an early night of the session —I think the first
evening on which we had any financial discussion—by a
sentence which fell from him. He said, "You had better go
and borrow seven or eight millions now, fori f you do not do
it now you will have to borrow it on worse terms, and at
a higher rate of interest." The recommendation snowed
me that the right hon. gentleman greatly cherished the
idea of a loan. He has thought fit to taunt me to-night
with having proposed to increase the malt tax out of spleen
towards the party opposite. I cannot, sir, enter on any
such discussion with the right hon. gentleman. If there
be those in this house who think that I myself could be
actuated by such motives, or that, if I were actuated by
such baseness, gentlemen of this disposition must un
doubtedly be quite beyond the reach of such feeble argu-
ment or expostulation as I can offer to them. (Cheers.) I,
therefore, wish the right hon. gentleman to understand
that if he should repeat charges of that nature in this house
they will receive from me, at least, no other answer than
silence. I cannot help reminding the right hon. gentle.
man, who is sometimes fond of a reference to history,
that this doctrine of loans is not the doctrine that in
ancient times was in favour with that party of which.
as he informed ns the other night in explicit terms, he is
"the humble leader." (Laughter.) Yes; the right hon.
gent eman has reproached me—no doubt very jus ly—with
want of humility, and I want to show the terms in which
he has advertised his own position. (Renewed laughter.)
Well, now, to pr coed with my reference to history. What
are we doing—we who are adverse to the landed interest ?
We are resisting, as far as we can—not on abstract princi-
ples—not with a vow registered in perpetuity, but under
present circumstances—a proposition sometimes insi-
diously suggested, sometimes timidly and faintly half-
uttered, sometimes broadly proclaimed, under the title
of an " equitable adjustment"—to shirk bearing the
weight of the burden at once, and to recommence the ca •
reer which Mr. Pitt was obliged to commence in 1793. But
the right hon. gentleman the "humble leader" of what he
calls "the interest connected with land" is pressing for
loans. Let him, however, go back to the origin of the
funded system, to the times of Dean Swift. He denounced
the early and unnecessary recourse to that system as im-
politic, and as injurious to the nation at large, but as
most of all injurious to land. And, so far from admit-
ting the charge, that the Government is actuated by
spleen against the party opposite—so far from believing
them guilty of a baseness that would deserve impeach-
ment if there were a grain of truth in the accu-
sation—l say that we are defending the interests of most
of all of the most permanent and substantial description
of property in this country, when we ask the House of
Commons to meet as far as they can the expenses of the
war from the taxes of the year, instead of by mortgages
on posterity. (Loud cheers.) The labourers of the coun-
try may emigrate to distant shores. The movable capital
of the country may emigrate;even while the owner re-
mains at home, by being lent in foreign investment. But
the land ! That cannot emigrate—that must remain, sub-
ject to the mortgage of the national debt. It is that mort-
gage which we are endeavouring to keep comparatively
light. (No, and a laugh.) It is that mortgage to which
the right hon. gentleman repreaches us for not making an
addition. Now, sir, I have stated this at some length,be-
eanse I was-not'-willing to make a light- assumption-on a
matter which I must confess appears to we-of groat im•