New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1859-10-29
r111o NATIONAL DEBT or GREAT

+ 02Jl0N&t
mons and portentous something which everybody
has heard Of and wondered over because toia uias
4 90 something wonderful but comparatively
few know anything Of the history OF this monster,
ar. perhaps. its extent in round numbers. Never
theless, significant interest has ever attached to
the mention or record Of the words English Pub
lie Debt which always stimulate curiosity to
know more about it, and probably more gener-
ally popular act never occurred in the British Par
lament than the motion of Viscount Goderich,
awhile since, that return of the whole amount Of
the national debt be made to that body. This was
done, and the condensed history of the debt occu-
pied one hundred pages.
To Charles II. belongs the honor of having laid
the cornerstone of the great and enduring nstitu-
ton known as the national debt of Great Britain,
for he died bequeathing to his successor pubic
debt of f664,263. The revolution of 1858, and the
establishment Of William and Mary on the throne
of James IL, cost couple of millions in the way
Of the addition of that amount to Charles IFS
| legacy. The war with France at the beginning OF
the last century added sum sufficient to raise inc
amount to Ella 900. The wars of Marlborough
and Peterborough ran the total up to f20, GOO 600
1 at the time of the treaty of Utrecht, and at the
conclusion of the brief war with Spain, in l72l,
had crawIed up to f54000,oOO. Sc far the progress
4 of the national debt had been steadily upward,
| but the administration of Sir Robert Walpole sue
ceedng the last increase, it was reduced by
| IS 600, 900, which proved, however, but brief
check to the growth of the financial monster, for
before Sir Robert was out of Office he got his coun
try into the war Of the Right Of Search with Spain,
and in l74S had the satisfaction of seeing that this
/ little indulgence had increased the weight of the
national incubus to Els, 900 00O This pretty sub
4 stantial nestegg was doubled, however, within
about half score Of years after by the bills of the
seven years war which added Canada to the British
i possessions in North America. For the next ac-
erection it seems that We of America are to blame,
for when Great Britain attempted to raise money
in the colonies to pay interest on the debt already
acquired and other expenses, the men of the colo
| MES unkindy resisted, and the efforts made at
1 compulsion more than doubled its amount, for al
the close Of the War Of the Revolution the public
debt fund footed up f240 O00, 000-a bad operation
certainly, to pay so much for losing the colonies.
These figures made the political economists Of
| the country shake their heads gloomiy, and ex-
press fears that Old England had assumed little
| heavier load of liability than she could COM
fortably stagger under without danger of falling
but this did not prevent them dashng sober calcu-
lations to the winds, imprecatng the expense, and
! pitching into another broil when Napoleon got
| their blood up, and they hammered away at their
mighty opponent until they finally got him down
| and chained him, like new Prometheus, to the
rock Of st. Helena, with the vulturc Of helpless
ambition and vengeance gnawing at his vitais.
But at what cost was the triumph achieved? The
national debt had been about quadrupled, for in
1915 it amounted to fs6o 100000! During the Pc
Rod intervening from that time to the Crimean war
| the sum Of the debt had been reduced by El00,-
900 O00 but that little tussle with the Car was
costly experience and restored one-half the saving
to the total leaving it at the sum at which it now
stands, fS05, 000, 000-a mastodon which has been
less than two hundred years growing to its present
magnificent proportions, and which now rules
Great Britain by sheer strength.
To what dimensions it is destined to increase who
can tell and who can tell whether the burden OF
its rule will not become so onerous as to result in
its reinforcement and destruction, and the fall Of
British empire with it. At present it has the full
confidence Of the people, who eagerly support it
for the small consideration of three per centum
per annum while in the early part of the last
century it had to pay eight per centum per annum
and people were not very anxious to oblige it even
at those figures. Recognized as the power behind
the throne which is greater than the throne itself
il manifesty is the throne de acto. the king queen
ministry, government, dynasty and whole estab-
lished order Of national things. A more firmly
seated tyrant never crouched like vampire upon
the necks of people, drawing the financial life
blood from them through the fundamentally of a
thousand forms of taxation, the burden of which
would not be for moment endured but for the
circumstance - the vital and important circum-
stance which constitutes the whole secret of the
tyrant's strcngth-that the same parties who hold
his stock constitute large and influential body Of
the people who pay the taxes which secure the
payment of interest to them. Thus is his rule self
supported.
NJ We are authorized to announce the
Of w. p. COLEMAN, Esq., candidate for the Office