SIR GEORGE LEWISobserved, that some discussion took place the day previous on the Vote of £2,000,000 for the payment of Exchequer bonds falling due in May next, and it was understood that some explanation would be given to-day by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the intentions of the Government with regard to this debt, and that the House would be informed whether it was intended simply to pay off these bonds and hereafter to ask for power to renew them or create a debt in some other manner of equivalent amount, or whether it was intended to defray the sum out of the Ways and Means of the year, without asking for power to create an equivalent amount of debt.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had intended to make his usual financial statement on Monday next; but it was now impossible, in the peculiar circumstances of the House, to make that intended statement. The House would admit that it would be unfair to press him to make anything like a partial statement at the present time; but with respect to this particular Vote, he begged to state that, by the arrangements which he had 1511 made, and which he trusted on a subsequent occasion to have an opportunity of submitting to the House of Commons, it was his intention to pay off these bonds entirely—definitively to pay them, and not to renew them, and not to borrow money in any other form with that object.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he wished to inquire whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a surplus of revenue to the amount of £2,000,000 to pay off the bonds?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the hon. Gentleman, if he should be present when he made his statement, would then have the opportunity of criticising it with his usual acumen; but at present he would content himself with saying that he should pay out of the Consolidated Fund this engagement of the country when it became due.
§ Resolutions agreed to.