The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-23 00:00:00

also possessing throughout an air of ingenuousness.
The one weak point now, upon careful considera-
tion, we take to be the Surplus which he is an, ici-
pating. A surplus of nearly two millions sterling
—in spite of the bad harvest, the after effects of
which the country has not yet quite realised—in
spite of the disastrous state of things in Hindostan,
threatening our commercial relations with the
far East—in spite of the imminent possibility, if it
be not, alas ! at this moment the actual
certainty of civil war between the Northern
and Soathern States of the American Confederation,
threatening our commercial arrangements in the
far East—in spite of our declining industry,
the Board of Trade returns showing a
falling off of fully seventeen per cent. on
the two opening months of the present year !
Counting upon a clear surplus of £1,923,000 in
spite of all these lugubrious indications of the future
is certainly so far, we cannot but think, like
calculating the number of chickens we expect to
chip the shell after the ordinary period required
for incubation—counting the full complement of
chickens from a nest-full of eggs, several of
which eggs are already known to be addled.
Taking one single item in that hoped-for
( and indeed confidently promised Surplus of
£1,923,000, taking the best part of one moiety of the
surplus, the sum of £750,000 counted upon by Mr.
GLADSTONE in the shape of the Chinese indemnity
to be received within this financial twelvemonth
—it has been felt from the first to have been
somewhat of a delusion on the part of our Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer calculating upon handling
these three-quarters of a million before the year
shall be out, in the form of good sycee silver to be
brought from the opposite ends of the earth and
poured in a glittering shower, an all but Danman
shower, into the lap of the Old Lady of Threadneedle-
street. Don't we wish we may get it P That is the one
ejaculation provoked by Mr. GLADSTONE'S delight-
ful calculation. What probability we have of
realising this dim ghostly phantom of a hope may be
estimated by any one who will turn to a dreadful
little damper of a letter sent us by a correspondent
(formerly of China), whose remarks it will be there
seen have been elicited;by the argument we took oc-
casion to put forward upon the subject of the Chinese
war, together with its past, present, and future ex-
penses in our impression of Saturday evening. Our
correspondent, it will be observed, writes thus in the
course of his communication :—" Mr. GLADSTONE
in his budget takes credit for £750,000 for China
indemnity money to be received up to March,
1862." Remarking thereupon—" Lord Joitx Rus-
SELL has stated that the claims of the British
merchants in Canton amount to £450,000, or rather
more; Lord ELGIN'S claim for their indemnity
amounted to £666,000 (or two millions of taels),
and that amount probably includes interest. Surely
Mr. GLADSTONE does not intend to appropriate this
money of the Canton merchants in order to make
up a balance in his favour for this year; without
calculating upon it his budget would show a defi-
ciency instead of a surplus ; and the question is,
will Mr. Bruce have arranged to pay the indem-
nity for Canton losses this year? If he has so
arranged—and Lord JOHN RUSSELL has declared
that the matter rests with Mr. BRUCE—then Mr.
GLADSTONE has no surplus." These and other
scarcely less startling reflections would certainly
appear to render it very incumbent upon the House
of Commons to look well into the reality of the
surplus anticipated by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, before daring rashly and precipitately
to avail themselves of it. The more that sur

plus is looked into, the more it appears to
dwindle away. Besides which, Mr. GLADSTONE
acknowledges himself to have been so indifferent

(a prophet last year (ride the preamble of his
Budget Speech on Monday evening), that the
Country, the House can hardly be expected to
accept upon his simple dictum his predictions for
the next financial Twelvemonth. Let us make
qtCte certain, to begin with, that he is not again I
miscalculating when he talks of a surplus--a 1

surplus that if this next year but turns out to
resemble in any way its immediate predecessor, will