The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-09 00:00:00

NATIONAL DEBT REDEMPTION ACT.

( From the Times. )

Mr. Gladstone shows a full sense of what the country
expects from a grand financial operation when he says
that the ultimate aim of the Government and the key of
his Resolutions is to lay the foundation of a permanent
irredeemable 2i per cent. stock. To do that in one
way or another is the wish of all who contemplate our
huge debt with some hope of its final extinction. As
successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have reduced
the rate of interest from 5 to 4 and from 4 to 3, there
was nothing very unreasonable in the hope that we may
see the rate lower still, there being no more reason why
it should stand at 3 than why it should have stood at 4.
No wonder then that this, which Mr. Gladstone calls the
key of his Resolutions, should occupy a prominent place
in the scheme, as rumour first brought it to the commer-
cial world. The Resolutions, however, have by no means
this single object and this simple character. They raise
the interest as well as lower it ; they add to the capital
as well as extinguish it ; they create new Annuities
and still newer Echequer Bonds ; they leave much
to the discretion of Government, and still more to the
taste of the public ; they make it impossible to describe
in what state the Debt and the national charge may be
ten years hece ; while sweeping away a few small deno-
minations of debt, producing no inconvenience and
scarcely known to the public at large, they introduce
novelties of the greatest magnitude, which may possibly
embrace larger portions of the National Debt. These
novelties, and this variety of operation, may or may not
be beneficial to the State or to the public creditor. We
only observe on the complexity of the scheme, the un-
certainty of its working, and the gratuitous character of
its innovations. We are not denying its sagacity ; time
alone can establish or confute its pretensions on that
point. We must, however, confess to a certain degree
of surprise at this invasion of the inventive, not to say
the imaginative, faculty into the regions of finance.
We may be wrong : Mr. Gladstone may be right when
he caters to the commercial appetite with such a profu-
sion of dishes ; but the public certainly expects simplifi-
cation, and fins the contrary in this instance.
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by paying a higher rate of interest. Secondly, the
views of those who, looking on that capital as an arith-
metical abstraction, hold the interest to be the substan-
tial ingredient of the debt, and the thing to be reduced
at any price. But inasmuch as in some cases this de-
crease of interest is to be purchased by an increase of
capital, and in others by a more convenient and nego-
tiable form of security, hence a third taste is consulted
by the proposed issue of Exchequer Bonds. These
are, in fact, the three heads of the scheme, and we deny
neither their fitness to the public wants, nor the pos-
sible convenience of these financial instruments to fu-
ture Chancellors of the Exchequer. Supposing, as Mr.
Gladstone appears to contemplate the operations should
extend to a hundred millions of stock, pretty equally
divided between all three operations, then we should
gain not less than a quarter of a million per annum
in reduced interest, and, setting off the diminished
capital against the increased, we should strike off rather
less than three millions from the aggregate capital at
the end of 40 years. At the end of that period there
will also be the power of redemption at par, which may

or may not then prove a very great convenience and
gain to the country. Long before 1894, however, the
whole of the funds may have been embraced in the
working of this measure, with a corresponding de-
crease in the annual interest paid to the fundholders, as
also in the ultimate capital. As concerns the fund-
holders, the Chancellor of the Exchequer meets the
wishes of those who live on their dividends, or who,
for other reasons, do not look far into futurity, with
an investment which will take away 2s. 3d. per
cent. from their incomes, but at any future period di-
minish their capital by 171. 10s. per cent. He meets
the case of settlements, trustee-ships, charitable funds,
and the like, with an investment that will diminish I
their incomes ss. per cent., but leave the capital 10/.
per cent. larger in 1894. He meets the convenience
of merchants, bankers, and others with a security
of a perfectly negotiable character, and which may
be compared to a bank-note, not payable on demand,
but instead thereof paying interest at 21 per cent. Per-
haps wr are to regard these three securities as so many
experiments or feelers on the taste and demands of the
pnblic ; and that the glory of reducing, if not finally
extinguishing the National Debt is to be awarded at last
to the most successful of the three financial creations.
Unwilling possibly to risk his character and his oppor-
tunity in one great experiment, Mr. Gladstone has sent
three shafts at the mark. The one that hits is to be
tried on the whole National Debt.
We certainly did regard with great apprehension the
possibility of an overwhelming number of fundholders
choosing to accept the Two-and-a-Half per Cents. at the
present loss of only ss. per cent. per annum, and the
ultimate gain of 101. per cent. in capital—a result which
might possibly hand over to the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer in 1894 the onerous task of redeeming at par
near 50,000,0001., added to the capital of the debt.
Mr. Gladstone has done justice to this apprehension,
though a contemporary affects to think it only a mark of
ignorance, or stupidity, or malice ; he accordingly con-
sents to limit the creation of -these Two-and-a-Half per
Cent. Annuities to 30,000,0001., the same limitation as
that proposed to the new Exchequer bonds. Such a
precaution may, perhaps, be superfluous, but there can
be no harm in it, and in case of that amount of the new
stock being taken, there will be time to consider the ex-
pediency of another issue. Supposing the experiments
entirely successful, and the whole of the national debt
eventually commuted into these three new securities
in equal proportions, the State would save thereby
about two millions in annual interest and some
thirty millions in capital. That would be a con-
siderable achievement. We confess, however, to
being rather ambitious in our demands. We had
hoped that even more might be done before the
end of the century. The guarantees given by the reso-
lutions before the house would close all prospect of more
being done in this direction, and wouid make Mr. Glad-
stone's name memorable for at least half a century from
the simple fact that he had monopolised its opportuni-
ties. All things considered, those opportunities are
great and may be greater still ; so it is not without a
pang that we see them all forestalled at once in one
financial scheme, however multiform and elastic it
may be.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

EPSOM STEEPECHASES.

GREAT METROPOLITAN STEEPLECHASE HANDICAP of 10
soya, each, with 100 added ; the second horse to save
his stake. Twice round a distance. About four
miles. Winners extra. The highest weight accepting
being under 11st 71b, it has been raised to that weight
and the others in proportion. (24 subs., 14 of whom
did not accept.)
Mr. Mason's British Yeomen, list 71b (S. Darling, jun.) 1
Mr. Osborne's Ringleader, lOst 51b (Archer) 2
The following also started : Maria Day, Hero, Janus,
and Sam Hood.
SELLING STEEPLECHASE of 3 sovs. each, with 20 added.
Optional selling weights. Once round and a distance.
About 2 miles. (12 subs.)

Mr. -I;,na's The Slashing Painter (404 10st 91b
(Green) 1
Mr. C. Higgins's Timothy (201), 9st 111 b
(Lamplugh, jun.) 2
The following also started :—Nom de Guerre, Legacy,
Napoleon, The Brewer, The Trojan, and Jackey.

FREE HANDICAP HURDLE RACE of 5 sovs. each, with 30
added; over six flights. Twice round ; about two
miles. (19 subs., 12 of whom did not accept.)
Mr. Saxon's Caurire, lOst (Archer) 1

Mr. Benstead's Malmesbury, 9st. 41b (Eatwell) 2
The following also started :—Gulnare, Quickstep,
Ormsby, and Union Jack. Even betting on Caurire, 4
to 1 agst Quickstep, sto 1 agst any other. Cauriro had
nearly all the race to himself, and won, pulling hard,
by half a distance. Quickstep was well up with Malmes-
bury to the stand, where he pulled up, and did not pass
the post.

STAND PLATE STEEPLECHASE of 50 soy., for all horses.
Optional selling weights. Once round and a half.
About three miles.

Mr. Sait's Simon the Cellarer (201.), lost (Owner) 1
Mr. Hodgman's Shinrone (201.), lOst (Ablett) 2
Mr. Hotham's Little-thought-of (201.), lOst
(Lamplngb, jun.) 3

The following also started :—Louis the-Firstand Peg-
top. C. Boyce weighed for Captain Scott's Victress,
but she did not go to the post.