The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-18 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL FINANCES.

THE CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, on Tues-
day, made a statement in the House of Commons
as to the condition of the National Finances, and
on Thursday, the Times, in its vocation as Minis-
terial mouth-piece, made a specious appeal to its
readers in defence of Mr. GLADSTONE'S character
as a financier. The mere fact of endeavouring to
explain the Ministerial statement in a leading
article, is a tacit confession that it required expla-
nation or defence ; and the very lame manner in
which the task was executed, shows the badness
of the cause. It indeed requires far more skill,
than the writer in the Mlles can boast, to justify,
to any reasonable man, the utterly inefficient
manner in which Mr. GLADSTONE has performed
the duties of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He
found the Treasury with a balance at its bankers
ample for all purposes, and more than ever neces-
sary when on the eve of what may prove an ex-
pensive war. That balance has been spent in order
to carry out a Quixotic project for reducing the
National Debt, and the result is, that the National
Debt is actually increased by the saving process,
and the Government is compelled to obtain ad-
vances from the Bank of England to meet current
expenses. In ordinary circumstances such a move-
ment would have been fatal to the reputation of a
Finance Minister of humbler pretensions than Mr.
GLADSTONE, but the• evil is considerably magnified,
and the fault proportionably greater at the present
time, when the demands for the pressing emergen-
cies of war render the possession of a balance in
hand an advantage of the first consequence. But
so far from the fault being admitted as an error in
judgment—to which even paragons of administra-
tive talent are sometimes liable—the Minister and
his apologist claim credit for skill, and we are
gravely assured that, in a country like ours, which
can always borrow at an emergency, on terms
easier than on any other nation, and can lay on
productive taxes to meet a loan whenever it pleases,
at a day's notice, it can never be necessary to have
a very large balance. So long as little more
than the ordinary expenditure was needed, the
interest on Government securities may have been
comparatively moderate ; but it is absurd to talk
of borrowing easily, when money, on good com-
mercial paper, is six per cent, and the interest
on Exchequer Bills has been doubled, in order to
keep them in the market. • • The Bank of England
is already in advance to the Government upwards
of two millions ; but this, according to the Times,
is nothing, because the revenue is being received,
and will amount to more before the end of the
quarter, forgetting that the expenditure is also
going on, and that farther advances will have to be

obtained to meet the next dividend. According to
Mr. GLADSTONE'S statement, the amount of Ex-
chequer Bills now out does not exceed sixteen
millions ; and this is said to be very satisfactory,
because it falls short of the amount authorised by
the Act of Parliament. Unfortunately for the
soundness of the argument, the Parliament has
been obsequious in granting every demand made
by the Minister without any very rigid inquiry
into its necessity or propriety, and, therefore, no
great credit can be taken for not exceeding Par-
liamentary grants, though it may be a serious
question whether, amidst professions of financial
prosperity, the unfunded debt should reach so large
a sum. The great mistake that has been com-
mitted is the placing reliance on the present Minis-
ters upon their own professions of administrative
talent, and the country is now beginning to ex-
perience some of the consequences of misplaced
confidence. At a time when Ministers must have
known, from official correspondence which has only
recently been made public, that a rupture with
Russia was probable, if not inevitable, all the ready
money was paid away in order to gratify a financial
crotchet which nothing but a plethora of capital
could have justified or excused ; and now, when
the monetary world is under pressure, and interest
is high, the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER is
compelled to borrow, in order to pay the expenses
of a war which the bad management of his col-
leagues has precipitated. Whatever may be the
issue—whether a speedy settlement be arrived at,
or the contest be protracted—it is right that the
country should know to whom they are indebted
fox the cost, which, under any circumstances, must
be large. The treachery of the Peelites to Lord
DERBY rendered a change of Ministry inevitable ;
and the truckling of the geelites to the Radicals
produced a coalition which has not only involved
us in 19,r, but which, by bad financial manage-
ment, has been rendered more expensive than it
might have been. Under a Conservative Govern-
ment the unfunded debt was comparatively trifling,
and the balance in the exchequer was an ample
provision for all contingencies ; but Peelite skill
has shown us a large surplus revenue upon paper,
while the country is more in debt than it was be-
fore. It would, perhaps, be the wisest course to
create a new debt at once to restore the balance,
or it may be that borrowing will become compul-
sory when the money market is less able to bear it
than it is at present.