which government was to grant as the consideration for those annual payments, would, it was imagined, be about 2,800,000l.

According to this scheme, government would, in the first year, receive from the contractors 4,900,000l. and pay 2,800,000l. ; they would, therefore, borrow in effect 2,100,000l. In the following year they would be borrowers of 1,900,000l., and so in every successive year, of sums becoming constantly less, till the fifteenth year, when they would receive only 110,000l. more than they paid, and they would, therefore, be borrowers only to that amount.

During all this time no interest would be paid for the sums annually borrowed. In the sixteenth year a new series of transactions would begin; for in that, and all the subsequent years, the payments made by the government to the contractors would exceed the payments made by the contractors to the government. This excess would, in the sixteenth year, be 10,000l.; in the 17th, 140,000l.; in the 18th, 270,000l.; and so on, constantly increasing, up to the last of the 45 years, when it would be 2,500,000l.; consequently, the true purport of the plan was nothing more than this to contract now for annual loans to be advanced to the government in each of the next fifteen years, which loans were to be repaid by a gradually increasing annuity, to commence at the end of fifteen years, and to continue for thirty years from that time.

The loans were to be applied in payment of part of the military and naval pensions, half-pay, and civil superannuations; and the probable diminution of this charge by the end of fifteen years was

expected to furnish the funds, by which the debt so contracted was to be discharged in the course of the ensuing thirty years. The merits of the plan, however, have no connexion with the application of the money to be borrowed, or the source which was to furnish the means of repayment. The scheme would have been the same, if the money to be raised by it had been to be applied to the ordnance department, or to the civil list, instead of to the half-pay and pension charge.

Now, in the first place, it is evident that this project was nothing more than a new loan. But we had this year a clear surplus of five millions, which was to be applied in diminution of the debt; and it is impossible to assign any valid reason for contracting new debts, when we had the means of avoiding that course by supplying our present wants from the funds which would otherwise be devoted to the redemption of the old debt, and appropriating to the latter purpose a sum less than would otherwise be set apart to it.

But further, the project of Mr. Vansittart was a loan of the most improvident character; for it involved a present contract for loans to be wanted during fifteen successive years. To contract, in 1822, for a loan, which is to be advanced in 1837, seems the height of financial madness. Surely sufficient for the day is the evil thereof: when the hour of want presses upon us, we must borrow; but why should either individuals or nations borrow, fifteen years before the money is needed? The only thing which could justify such a scheme, would be the certainty of being able to borrow, on more favourable terms, in 1822,

than at any time before 1837. But the chancellor of the exchequer had no such certainty; on the contrary, all the probabilities were the other way.

There is still another circumstance, in respect of which this scheme was contrary to sound principle. In every loan, provision ought to be made for the immediate payment of the accruing interest. But here not a farthing was to be paid during fifteen years, on account of the debt contracted in that time; and the repayment was to commence at the end of that period, by an annuity of thirty years duration.

In every point of view, there fore, the project of the chancellor of the exchequer was worthy of unqualified condemnation, as a most curious specimen of the most ruinous species of borrowing that the wit of man could devise. Never did financial cleverness exhibit to a wondering parliament, a more signal instance of arithmeti cal juggling. It was in itself pure folly and improvidence; but its true character was partially concealed by the extraneous matter which was blended with it, and by the masquerade habit of long formidable calculations, in which it was dressed up. As quacks disguise their medicines by mixing with the main ingredient a variety of drugs which add nothing to its efficacy, and are used only for the purpose of concealing the real composition of the mixture; so the chancellor of the exchequer enveloped his project of borrowing for fifteen years, without interest, in order to repay during the subsequent thirty years, in so many irrelevant speculations, and in so many arithmetical puzzles, that he bewildered and confounded parlia

ment by those very ideas, which, if exhibited naked, would have produced only derision. Had he stated to the House of Commons, "I shall this year borrow more than two millions, and shall pay no part, either of the principal or interest for fifteen years to come; but in the sixteenth year I shall pay 10,000l. on account, and something more in each of the thirty years following;" even the country gentlemen would have doubted the wisdom of such a mode of borrowing. But had he gone on to add "I shall also in the present year contract for a loan for 1837, and all the intervening years, to be repaid in a similar manner,” it is scarcely conceivable but that every voice must have protested against so unnecessary and so expensive a taste for loans. "Let 1837 borrow for itself, if it should need to do so," must have been the universal exclamation. Mr. Vansittart, however, by the involved perplexity of his ideas and statements, succeeded in deluding himself, his colleagues, and the legislature.

Finance is a matter of mere arithmetic and common sense. Of all political subjects, it is that which requires the least comprehension or capacity; it is that, which, in its own nature, is most on a level with the reach even of ordinary, half-educated minds. Thanks, however, to the complicated forms, into which financial statements are always thrown, this department of government (except so far as regards the imposition of taxes) is almost exempted from the control of public opinion. Few of the people, few of the members of the House of Commons presume to judge of the sublime mysteries, which emanate

from the lips of a chancellor of the exchequer. Like an astrologer of past times, his responses proceed from a lofty science, inaccessible to vulgar minds. The subjects, with which he has to deal, are, it is supposed, such as only certain rarely-gifted individuals can venture to scan. The consequence is a general indifference to what is supposed so far to surpass common understanding. This indifference England has often had bitter cause to regret. Financial arrangements have been frequently adopted, to which discussion must have been fatal, had it not been that the majority of the members of the legis lature take no interest in such subjects, and believe that they are intelligible only to the initiated members of the craft of finance.

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The scheme was very sharply discussed in its progress through parliament. One of the most remarkable circumstances attending these discussions was, the strange phraseology of the chancellor of the exchequer, who did not scruple to give the appellation of nual saving" to the sum which was to be annually borrowed. Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Brougham were his most formidable adversaries. In the committee, Mr. Ricardo sarcastically suggested, that since the country would gain by the plan, there was no reason why its operation should not be extended. Why should not the whole army charge at once be put upon the footing of annuity?

Mr. Brougham entirely concurred in that suggestion, and begged to ask the right hon. chancellor of the exchequer, whether he would not extend his plan. There were many expenses of the government to which so admirable a system might clearly be made

applicable. There was the civil list, the pension list; those charges were annuities dependant upon lives. What could be better than to farm the pensioners off at once? Nay, ministers themselves might be provided for upon the same principle. Their tenure of place was almost equal to tenure for life. Whatever might be the goodness of their holding, it seemed at least tolerably secure; and Mr. Brougham doubted not to find contractors for the ministers as well as for the half-pay officers. He felt himself bound to press the measure upon the consideration of the Treasury; a discovery so important ought not to be neglected. Nor were the powers of the measure confined even to the salaries of ministers; for the whole royal family might be farmed out in the same way, to the relief of the present generation (which much wanted such relief), and at the expense of a trifling burden only upon our happy posterity.

When the report of the committee on the resolutions, in which the plan had been embodied, was brought up, and the question for agreeing to the resolutions was put, Mr. Hume objected, that the measure sought to relieve ourselves by burdening posterity, and was therefore a direct violation of the principle of the sinking fund. Besides, the operation was so complex that it was almost unintelligible, and the perplexity was spread over a period of no less than 45 years. The project was so novel, that it would be found very difficult to find contractors: for sixteen years they would not receive a single shilling, and would be paying many millions in advance. It was clear, also, that the public must be losers by the transaction, if

private parties entered into the speculation with government; but if the loan (for it was nothing else) were taken by the commissioners of the sinking fund, the scheme would be rendered comparatively simple and intelligible. He could not see what objection could be urged to so plain a proposition, and he concluded by moving, as an amendment, "that the lords of the Treasury be authorized to contract with the commissioners for the redemption of the national debt for the sums required."

Mr. Ricardo argued, that whatever bonus the private contractor obtained, would be a clear loss to the country, with the accumulation of compound interest. There could be no doubt, that, if the sum required were now taken from the sinking fund, the country, at the end of 45 years, would be in a better financial situation than if the money were borrowed from individuals, who would of course make a profit of the public wants. He was an enemy to all complicated schemes, and was for avoiding a crooked path, when there was a straight one leading to the same end. The clear and obvious course was, to take the sum from the sinking fund; and if ministers did not do so, it was only because they had, a short time before, repeatedly and successfully called upon the house to support the sinking fund.

Mr. Brougham asserted, that, whatever name the chancellor of the exchequer might give to his plan, it eventually must be neither more nor less than an interference with the sinking fund. Who were to gain relief by the proposed plan? Why, they who should live and pay taxes for the next 16 Who would suffer by the

years.

relief which was to be effected? They who should live and pay taxes, after the expiration of the first 16 years of the 45. Until after the first 16 years should expire, the country would be going on borrowing, but without making any payment. Now, the only difference between such a project and ordinary loans was this-that, in the case of ordinary loans, the country paid the interest regularly every year; but, in this instance, it would not begin to pay at all until the 17th year. But then, for the remaining 29 years of the term, it would have to pay principal, interest, and profit too. It followed, that the persons to be relieved by the scheme were those who should pay taxes during the first 16 years; and that the persons, at whose cost that relief was to be obtained, would be those who were to pay taxes during the remaining term of 29 years. Now the sinking fund pressed hardest upon the former of these classes. It was supported by means of the sums paid for that purpose by those who lived and paid taxes during the first series of 16 years. But who were the persons that would derive the profit of it? They, clearly, who should pay taxes after that series of 16 years had passed. Therefore, the principle of the proposed plan was completely at variance with that of the sinking fund.

The next question, continued Mr. Brougham, was, what terms was the chancellor of the exchequer likely to get in the market? In the first place the novelty of the plan must inevitably raise the market against him. It was clear, that men, in order to be induced to take that sort of bargain which was new and strange and