The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-23 00:00:00

From the Morning Ho
(pears certain that an additis
to our nAtie debt. Twelve millions xlll bate-- s
manded for the de e -of our coast and dockyards,
which cannot be supplied by ordinary taxation,
while there is a very confident expectation that in-
stead of a surplus there will be a deficient revenue.
The Finance Minister will be driven to a loan, and
fresh burdens will be imposed to pay the interest.
,assious to observe that as Europe advances in
civilisation one of its characteristics is increased
indebtedness. All its leading states are infected
with this malady. No efforts are made to repay
old liabilities. Borrowing, not liquidating, is the
order of the day. Russia wants a little accommo-
dation; the purse of Sardinia requires replenish-
ment; the coffers of Austria are empty; tier will
it eseite surprise should the French exchequer
stretch forth its hand to the metal of Australia ard
California. Demands of this character are fatal to
the independence of nations, for every loan resolves
itself into a tax on labour, and before industry can
sustain itself it must part with more of its earn-
ings. The payment of interest demands an exten-
sion of the hours of toil, and is, in a very certain
though not obvious sense, the antagonism of early
closing and the short-time movement. There are
unfortunately loose writers and thinkers who ex-
press themselves lightly on these monetary opera-
tions, and even exult in the facility with which
money can be borrowed on account of the stability
of British credit, forgetting that as indebtedness
increases credit diminishes. The subject is the more
serious at this financial juncture, when the present
Government and their adherents are bent on chang-
ing the entire system of revenue by converting in-
direct into direct taxation. Shift the burden as
we may, it must either fall on property or labour,
and one or the other must sink under these con-
stantly-expanding accumulations. The monied
classes, possessing themselves of the national in-
strument of distribution, must become dominant, as
the interest on the public debt becomes more ex-
acting and the trade necessities for discount become
urgent. When these are maximised—and we are
tending in that direction—the victory of the drones
over the bees will be complete. But the triumph
will not be of long duration • the contrast between
gilded idleness and squalid labour is not permitted
to continue—it meets its doom either in the wretch-
edness of an enfeebled slavery, under which pro-
duction expires, or in the unrestrained furies of a
devastating revolution. We know not when the
fatal hour may come, but a year of famine is one of
its assured precursors.
National defence certainly justifies a loan, but
aggressive war can never be pleaded in its vindica-
tion ; and as we are now driven to this sad necessity
in an era of boasted civilisation, we must submit to
the infliction ; but it becomes the Legislature to
consider well the mode and the terms. We must
borrow the money from the richest among our own
countrymen, for they are the class who can advance
the funds; and though they would suffer most were
a hostile army encamped in London, they are not
likely to lend their stores of gold without interest.
That disinterested quality of patriotism is not among
the virtues of the money market. The•defence of
the country is there, a bargain. Duke et decorum
est pro-patria nzori, is a pagan prejudice, which
meets no response among those who grow rich as
other classes are impoverished. " These," says Dr.
Johnson, "rejoice when obstinacy or ambition adds
another year to slaughter and devastation, and
laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while
they are adding figure to figure and cipher to cipher,
hoping for a new contract for a new armament, and
computing the profits of a siege or a tempest." We
have then to make a bargain, for we have perverted
the ancient reserve of an income tax, which earlier
wisdom held back for military and naval defence.
Under the burlesque of free trade we have parted
with our best resource in the hour of exigency, and
we are now to pay the penalties of our felly in a
new loan; so sure is it that the day of retribution
comes, though none may be able to fix its date.
At this crisis, then, it is well to look back to past
times when loans were not novelties, and finance
ministers were the dupes of contractors. Any one
who consults our history as it relates to the national
debt will soon be convinced that it was immensely
increased in amount by our paying to the monied
classes vastly more than they loaned. For instance,
the celebrated economist, Dr. Hamilton, who ex-
posed the bubble of the sinking fund, calculates
that the stock created between 1776 and 1786,
chiefly in consequence of war with our American
colonies, amounted ,to £115,267,993, while the
cash received into the public treasury was only
£91,763,842, showing an excess of stock or debt
registered over cash for all future time against the
public debtor of £23,455,668. This last sum, there-
fore, was a bonus conceded to the contractors or
extorteti by them from the Finance Minister of
the psr iod, being 26 per cent. in excess of what was
advanced. This was the system which called forth
the invective of Dr. Johnson. It was in this man-
ner that the monied class arose. All the loans
partook of this shameless character, sometimes by
douceurs, sometimes by premiums ; but the most
flagrant exhibition of this rascality occurred be-
tween 1793 and 1816; for, according to Mr. Mar-
shall's tables, on an average of all the loans of this
period upwards of £173 of debt was created for
every £lOO received. At the beginning of the year
1793 the funded debt stood at £229,614,466. In
the corresponding period of the year 1816 it stood
at £816,311,939, being a net increase daring those
years of £586,697,493. Therefore, according to
Mr. Marshall, as £173 of debt is registered against
£lOO borrowed, it follows that the public Treasury
only received £339,131,500, where it was made
debtor for £586,697,493, and thus was bubbled out
of £247,565,993. These statements may appear
incredible, but they are arithmetically true. The
past is beyond recall; no equitable adjustment is
now possible ; the taxation interest on money never
received must be continued—but the facts narrated
may serve as a timely warning for the future, so
as to prevent the repetition of similar robberies.
When a Chancellor of the Exchequer enters the
money market as a borrower it is seen that a few
leading capitalists hold the Government at their
mercy—a state of dependency which will astonish
a more enlightened generation. He must so frame
his terms as to conciliate bankers and brokers ; in
his propositions he is not to think so much of the
welfare of the country as of the wishes of those who
are to be lured to subscription. For instance, ter-
minable annuities are not so marketable as those
which are practicably irredeemable. A 3 per cent.
loan is preferred to a 5 per cent. loan, as there is
less chance of the former rising to par, and so be-
coming liable to be paid off, than the latter. On
such points the lenders are to be consulted, and
also the class known as the " jobbers," who are
always ready to buy or sell, as the case may be,
for a turn in their favour of one-eighth per cent.
They, therefore, desiderate such a quality of stock
as is most rapidly negotiable. A national debt must
differ in character from all other forms of mortgage.
It must serve the double purpose of an investment,
securing an annuity to those who merely look to an
assured income guaranteed by the Government;
but it must also assume such a form, as was never
originally contemplated, as will enable dealers to
speculate in the instruments of national indebted-
ness. Without these conditions the subscriptions
would fail, and thus the spirit of gambling feeds on
public calamity. Our writers of light literature
have graphically (portrayed such operations, and
sketched even to caricature the'moral physiognomy
of the usurer ; but unfortunately no strenuous and
continuous effort has been made to put down the
system. It is true that Mr. Gladstone has pro-
tested against loans, and insisted that the revenue
for the year should be collected within the
_year,
but he has never pointed out or evenhinted.how
effected.
they Others have
lusaiorenscr.eaitteids
the operation could be
fspokenrem ea
surplus
sinkingfn
are
et
sheer
rss,
an obviously idle process to contract a new debt to
dsfuthnedys'
redeem an old one, paying with one hand while
borrowing with :another, for the only true surplus
is the surplus multiplication of coMmodities, of
which money is but the symbol or representative
counter.

PROVISIONING GARRISON TOWNS.—At the re-
quest of the Commission on the Defences of the Kingdom
application was made to the authorities of certain garrison
towns to know what stock of food would ordinarily be
found in hand for the subsittence of the population if the
towns were suddenly shut up. From the answers of the
mayors of Portsmouth, Pipet uth, and Chatham it may be
taken that the supply of Meat and cattle is not above a
week's consumption;
and of breadstuff's, salt provisions,
and grocery, not more than would last from three to five
weeks, if so much; but the mayor of Plymouth adds, that
with a brief notice, perhaps of a single day, a supply of
food might be collected sufficient for at least six weeks'
consumption, and that he had ascertained from comietent
authority in .the corn trade that with a wLeles notice
provisions might he obtained sufficient for three months.
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secure perfect digestion to all ordinary food, Ana 154
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i
the cause of decline, these Pills IDI
position most favourable to recovery-
debilitated readily regain their strenfrth.
a::der which the most
the
pst