HC Deb 04 August 1875 vol 226 cc509-24
MR. DODSON

, in rising to call attention to the Supplementary Estimates now submitted, with reference to some observations which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer at an early period of the Session, said, the Supplementary Estimates at present submitted to the House were these—In connection with the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, £ 112,000; Civil Service Estimates, £ 297,800; Navy Estimates, £ 5,700; further Civil Service Estimates, £ 2,200—making a total of £ 417,700. In the last item named he was glad to see included a proposal which he was sure the House would receive with favour. It was an addition to the salary of his hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means by which that official would be placed on an equal footing with the corresponding official in the Upper House. He believed the House would receive that proposal favourably, not only as regarded the office itself, but also with regard to the efficient and able manner in which the present occupant discharged the duties. In introducing his Budget the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in detail the increments he expected in different branches of the Revenue, and took credit for them; his total estimate of such increments was £ 940,000. This total included the estimated increment upon the income tax, at 2d. in the pound, compared with the produce of 2d. in the pound last year, leaving out of consideration the extent to which the Revenue was swollen last year by means of the tax at 3d. The right hon. Gentleman estimated an increase upon each penny of £ 50,000, making an addition of £ 100,000 as compared with last year. By the aid of these increments of Revenue, he arrived at an estimated surplus of £ 417,000. He presented his Estimates as exact Estimates; he said they had been deliberately framed, that they were neither too cautious nor over sanguine, and that he submitted them with confidence. He then proposed to reduce the surplus by £ 60,000 for brewers' licences, £ 185,000 to be applied to the reduction of the National Debt, and £ 70,000 charged for local purposes in the present year. By these figures the right hon. Gentleman reduced his estimated surplus to the sum of £ 102,000. That estimated surplus was subsequently further reduced by the sum of £ 6,000 in consequence of his abandonment of the proposed 5s. stamp duty upon appointments. Thus the estimated surplus was reduced to £ 96,000. When the Budget came to be further discussed three weeks afterwards, the right hon. Gentleman was pressed to show how he expected his estimated surplus of about £ 100,000 to meet the Votes for Irish Education and for the Supplementary Estimates, which everybody anticipated. The right hon. Gentleman shifted his ground and intimated that his Estimates were low and that he relied upon higher increments than those he had stated to the House. He said— I do anticipate that there will be a further amount of Revenue which will come into the Exchequer in some shape or other, and which will fairly balance any Supplementary Estimates we may have to propose. Is not that, after all, a common-sense view of the case? He went on to say— I think I am taking a safe estimate when I say that I may put the supplementary receipts and savings on expenditure—for these must be taken into account—against any Supplementary Estimates that may be required."—[3 Hansard, ccxxiv. 320–21.] On the 8th of June, in Committee on the Sinking Fund Bill, the right hon. Gentleman was further pressed about the smallness of the surplus to meet the increasing expenditure and the Supplementary Estimates, and the right hon. Gentleman stood at bay, and said— In his Budget Statement he told the House there would be some Supplementary Estimates, but not more than would be covered by the anticipated excess of Revenue; and when any Supplementary Estimates were presented he meant to justify his statement. He added— When Supplementary Estimates were proposed he would show how they were to be met. Hon. Gentlemen had no right to anticipate those Supplementary Estimates until the Government told them what they were and what means they would have of meeting them."—[3 Hansard ccxxiv. 1555–7.] The House had now got Supplementary Estimates amounting to £ 417,700 before it, and it might be regarded as a matter almost of certainty that before the close of the financial year 1875–6 there would be further Supplementary Estimates. The Supplementary Estimates of £ 417,700 would require to meet them something more than the estimated surplus of £ 102,000, now reduced to £ 96,000. This was not all. From a Return relating to the National Debt, presented on the 29th of April last, on the Motion of his right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), it appeared that, over and above the fixed charge for the National Debt provided for in the Estimates, the right hon. Gentleman anticipated he would have a surplus of about £ 500,000 applicable to the reduction of the Debt in the current financial year. It was stated as a foot-note to the Return that the average surplus revenue applicable to the reduction of the Debt must be taken at £ 500,000. With his estimated surplus of £ 100,000 the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to meet the Supplementary Estimates now presented of more than £ 400,000; also whatever increased charges there might be before the close of the financial year, and further he hoped to have a round sum of £ 500,000 applicable to the reduction of the Debt over and above what he had estimated in his Budget Statement. What was it he was trusting to in order to meet these sums, which amounted to upwards of £ 900,000? He calculated upon, and had taken credit for the increments on the Revenue of last year as amounting to upwards of £ 900,000. Apart from savings in expenditure, what else could he be looking to to meet these further charges? The right hon. Gentleman appeared to have had two sets of figures and' calculations; one an exoteric set which he gave to the House, under which he estimated an increase of Revenue of over £ 900,000; the other an esoteric set, under which he estimated the increments of Revenue at double that amount, or more than £ 1,800,000. If that were so, it was not fair to the House of Commons. The Chancellor of the Exchequer could be understood, if he framed his Budget on the old-fashioned principle and said—"The produce of the Revenue last year was so much, and I estimate it will produce the same amount, without taking into account increase of population or increase of trade; "or if he said—"I will adopt the bolder principle of allowing for increments of Revenue, and make the best forecast I can of the political and commercial prospects of the coming year; and I will take the responsibility of doing it." But he did not understand the position of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who said—" I give you an estimate of the increments of Revenue as accurately as I can; "and then when he was pressed, as to how certain charges were to be met, said—" I have something in reserve I did not tell you about, further increments of which I have not told you, and of which I am not going to tell you." If the House of Commons were to consider any increments of Revenue at all, the estimates ought to be the best which the Chancellor of the Exchequer could make, and there ought to be no reserve on his part. We have now got the Returns of the Revenue for the first four months of the year—that was, up to the 31st of July, and it did not come up to the Budget Estimate. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: What?] The Revenue for the four months was upwards of £ 24,000,000, and the right hon. Gentleman's estimate for the year was £ 75,685,000, a third of which was £ 25,228,333. He did not, however, lay any stress upon this difference, because it was impossible for an outsider to form a judgment of the whole year from the revenue of a fourth, a third, or even a half. What he asked the right hon. Gentlemen now to do was to redeem the promise he made on the 8th of June in the debate on the Sinking Fund Bill, and to tell the House, now that the Supplementary Estimates had been presented, by what means he intended to meet them?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he fully and gladly recognized the right of the right hon. Gentleman to put this question to him, and even if he had not done so he should have felt it his duty to address some observations to the House in redemption of the pledge he had given that when the Supplementary Estimates of the year were presented that he would explain the general position of the finances, and justify the proceedings of the Government. The House would, however, first allow him for a moment to call its attention to the ground upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was called upon to proceed in framing his Budget, and the particular points to which his consideration must be directed. It was important that he should take an opportunity of stating to Parliament and the country the general condition of the finances, and that his statement should be as full and accurate as possible. But the main point which he had to consider in making his Financial Statement was the financial proposals that it was his duty to make to the House; and when he made proposals involving an alteration of taxation either by way of addition or remission, it was admitted that a very searching inquiry should be made as to the grounds on which that addition or remission was proposed. When, however, as in the present instance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer left everything undisturbed, and proposed neither an addition nor a remission of taxation, the matter was, in some respects, to be viewed with a different eye, and the chief object which he had to consider at the time he made his proposals was whether there was any justification for proposing such addition or remission, and he accordingly endeavoured to point out the state of the finances which justified the position he then took. In order to do so, he laid before the House an account of the receipts of the past year, and entered into the Estimates of income and expenditure of the coming year, although there were one or two matters of expenditure in regard to which it was impossible to make a perfectly accurate statement. There was, for instance, the question of Irish education, involving a very important principle which had not then been decided by the Government. At the same time, there was a considerable Vote in pro- spect, the amount of which had not then been ascertained, for the visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to India. These were two of the items, therefore, which he had in view, although there was some little uncertainty as to the amount of the Supplementary Estimates. There was at the time a somewhat exaggerated opinion afloat, both in that House and elsewhere, as to the amount which would be proposed under one of those heads, yet the Government were pretty confident that the Supplementary Estimates would not exceed a very moderate sum. He would observe, as a matter of fact, that the Supplementary Estimates now proposed were not very excessive as compared with previous years. In the financial year 1872–3 Supplementary Estimates were presented of £ 342,000, including the Vote for Irish Education and Telegraphs. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Was that during the Session?] Yes. In the year 1873–4 the amount of the Supplementary Estimates was £ 386,000, including the Vote for the Irish Constabulary. This year the amount of the Supplementary Civil Service Estimates was £ 297,800. The Vote for the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, including the naval expenditure, was £ 112,850; the Supplemental Estimate for the Navy was £ 5,700, and the House of Commons' Vote was £ 2,200. In his Financial Statement, he left the balance of estimated revenue over expenditure in round numbers at about £ 100,000, and as he now proposed Supplemental Estimates amounting to about £ 400,000, there was a difference of £ 300,000. The right hon. Gentleman had reminded the Committee that in the course of the financial discussions the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that his Estimates of Revenue were low, and that he would probably have a larger surplus of income over expenditure than he had estimated at the time of making his Budget statement. He described that by saying that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had "shifted his ground" from that which he had taken up on the Budget, and that he was thereby acting unfairly. But he did not admit that he had at all shifted his ground. He stated at the time that his Estimates were moderate Estimates, and this assertion was immediately challenged by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) and by the hon. Member for the Wick Burghs (Mr. Laing). He found at the close of the debate that evening he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in his reply made these remarks— At the present moment, there was a very small surplus left; but, in the first place, he believed that the Estimates had been taken at a very moderate and reasonable figure; and, in the second place, he was not proposing to sacrifice the surplus by the remission of taxation, but by appropriating a larger amount to the payment of Debt. It was not therefore a case in which there was so much imprudence in running rather close to the wind as it would be if he were proposing to give away £ 200,000 or £ 300,000 in remission of taxation."—[3 Hansard, ccxiii. 1061.] When, therefore, he was told that he had left himself so small a surplus, he reminded hon. Members that the Government was making a provision of £ 255,000 for the payment of the Debt, and that it could therefore hardly be said that if they failed to realize the amount, of surplus they expected to receive they were therefore running themselves into a deficiency. The question simply was whether they should apply a larger or smaller amount to the payment of the Debt. What was their condition at the present time? Last year, when he made a considerable allowance for the growth of the Revenue, although his total figures were within the mark, and were indeed larger than he had reckoned upon, yet in some particulars he had fallen below the amount, and he had been taunted and upbraided in that House and elsewhere that he had failed in his calculations upon certain branches of the Revenue. Finding this to be the case last year, he stated more than once that it would be safer this year to reckon upon a more moderate amount of increase in some branches of Revenue, and that he was willing to run the risk of any Supplementary Estimates that it might be necessary to propose. And he staked his reputation on there being a sufficient surplus of Revenue in the Customs, Inland Revenue, and Stamps over the Estimates to meet any Supplementary Estimates that might be proposed. He was confident that he should be able at the proper time to show that his calculations were within the mark, and now that the Supplementary Estimates were seen to amount to the moderate sum of £ 400,000, he was able to state that the Returns of Revenue fully justified, the Estimates he had formed, and that the Government would receive a larger amount of Revenue than was necessary to cover the Supplementary Estimates. He could not help feeling some surprise that the right hon. Gentleman had put a question tending to show that his receipts for the portion of the year that had elapsed had fallen below the estimate. They had, on the contrary, considerably exceeded his estimate, and he could not understand how the right hon. Gentleman could make it out to be otherwise. The right hon. Gentleman had explained it by saying that the receipts of the first three or four months of the year were not equal proportionately to the whole Revenue of the year. Of course, not. No one would suppose that in the first third of the year they would receive one-third of the revenue of the year; last year, for instance, the total receipts of the Customs were £ 19,289,000, while the receipts up to the 1st of August were £ 6,054,000. According to the receipts of the first portion of the year, the Revenue ought to have been £ 18,000,000, while it actually exceeded £ 19,250,000. The Excise revenue of 1874–5 was £ 27,395,000; but the receipts up to the 1st of August were only £ 8,160,000. So with regard to Stamps and other heads of Revenue. The Income Tax also exhibited a very considerable difference in the receipts at different periods of the year. The sound basis of calculation was how the Revenue was coming in this year as compared with last year; because if they were receiving a fair proportion of the amount which they ought to receive, and if there was no reason to suppose that the rate of increase would fall off, they would arrive at a fair conclusion as to what the Revenue would be at the end of the year. There were several items of Revenue upon which it was difficult to form an accurate calculation. These were the Income Tax, the Post Office, the Telegraph Service, the Crown Lands, and the Miscellaneous. He would, therefore, put these aside with the single remark that the receipts were not only equal to, but in advance of, what he had estimated. He would now take the Customs, the Excise, and the Stamps, and, putting the matter broadly, he would state that the estimated increase under these three heads for the whole year had been already more than realized during the four months that had elapsed. And further, if the receipts day by day only reached the same amount in the Customs, Excise, and Stamps taken together, it would be found that his estimate of receipts under these three heads would be fully made up. He did not see any reason to suppose that the rate of advance would be stayed, although he did not say it would proceed for the rest of the year at the same rate as during the first four months. Assuming, however, that instead of being stationary, it went on at the same rate which had hitherto been realized, the receipts might be roughly but fairly taken as being from £ 800,000 to £ 1,000,000 more than he had reckoned upon.

MR. DODSON

asked, if the right hon. Gentleman would state what was the Budget estimate of the Revenue from Customs, Excise, and Stamps, and what were the actual amounts received under those three heads up to the 31st July last?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he had no objection to give the information asked for. The estimate of Customs receipts for the present year was £ 19,500,000, and there had been actually received for Customs in the previous year £ 19,289,000. He had, therefore, estimated that there would be an increase of Customs' revenue of £ 200,000 in the present year. The amount received up to the 31st of July was £ 6,268,000, against £ 6,054,000 received up to the 1st of August, 1874, being an increase as compared with last year of £ 214,000 on the Customs. So that in these four months the Government had realized exactly the amount which he had estimated he should gain upon the whole year. The Excise last year brought in £ 27,395,000. This year he estimated that it would bring in £ 27,740,000, being an estimated increase of £ 345,000 on the Excise. The actual receipts up to July 31 were £ 8,644,000, being an increase over the estimate of £ 484,000, from which would have to be deducted £ 187,000, owing to different railways, so that the estimated increase of £ 300,000 had been realized within about £ 40,000. The Stamps produced last year £ 10,540,000. They were estimated to produce in the present year £ 10,600,000, being an estimated increase of £ 60,000. The actual increase for the four months was £ 103,000. Therefore, if this rate of increase should go on, it would produce very satisfactory results. He made this statement to justify the general position he had taken up, and which did not warrant him in asking for additional taxation. The practical point in a Financial Statement was what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to ask the House of Commons to do. He had to ask the House to vote certain expenditure, and he ought to have the means to meet it. If it were unnecessary to impose a tax last April, under the circumstances he should have thought it wrong to propose to do so, and the country would not have liked an additional penny put upon the income tax, or any other additional charge which at the end of the year would have raised £ 2,000,000 or £ 3,000,000 more than was wanted. On the other hand, it was left open to him by the course he took, if his calculations proved unsound or fallacious, to appeal if necessary to Parliament for the assistance he might require, but which in April he did not expect he should need. He was glad, therefore, to be able to say that the expectations he had formed at that period had been realized, and that on that account it was with great confidence that he submitted these moderate Supplementary Estimates to the House. [Cheers.]

MR. GLADSTONE

I have listened with much interest to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and also to that of the right hon. Gentleman near me (Mr. Dodson), which preceded it with respect to the state of the Revenue. I was not aware that it was my right hon. Friend's intention to raise this question; but it was perfectly right, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has observed, that some observations should have been made upon it, in order to give him the opportunity of redeeming the pledge which he gave on a former occasion. I will not enter into any details as to the present condition of the Revenue, because that is not the question really involved in the financial proceedings of the present year. There may in this country occasionally be a very large surplus of Revenue when the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not fulfilled his duty of making sufficient provision to meet the wants of the country, and there may be a heavy deficiency when he has fulfilled that duty. Consequently it is, in my opinion, the principles which are involved in our financial proceedings to which we have to look, and by no means to the results which at a given moment may be before the House. What I lament, Sir, is this—We live in a state of things when undoubtedly—and history will unquestionably record it—the House of Commons is becoming by degrees, what it ought not to be, not a control over the expenditure—at any rate, not a sufficient eon-trolling power on the expenditure of the Government, but rather a stimulating power to enlarge and augment that expenditure. That this is the case I do not hesitate to say to some extent on both sides of the House, although—perhaps from my own feeling of partiality I think that this side of the House is less responsible than the other—but this is a matter of dispute into which I do not desire to enter. I cannot ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to assent to that proposition, although I believe that in the course of time and on the proper occasion they will approve of what I have said. But what I wish to say is, that in this state of things it is to the Government of the country, and especially to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we have to look to maintain the strict doctrines of finance—that is to say, to enforce upon the House the necessity of making ample and adequate provision for maintaining rigidly that the principle that once a year, and not by successive driblets, the House has a right to be informed as to the finance of the country, and the accounts of the country are to be cast up. It has a right to be informed on such occasions that everything which is unreal and fictitious in finance is to be avoided—that it is wrong to ask the House to vote money for the reduction of the National Debt and afterwards to speak of that Vote of money as means upon which we can safely draw in case the estimate of income as compared with expenditure is not sufficiently realized. But what I lament is this—On this occasion my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without any disapproval on the part of the House—on the contrary, he sat down amid the cheers of his Friends, which does not surprise me in the slightest degree—and not only without any disapproval on the part of the House, but without any dis- approval that I can see in the country, and certainly with no disapproval on the part of the metropolitan Press—instead of preaching the strict and rigid doctrines of finance, and endeavouring to maintain the tone of the House on this subject, has been putting forward every kind of apology for lax proceedings in this matter, for making small and insufficient arrangements having relation to the increase of the Revenue, and for declining to provide, in the shape of Supplementary Estimates, for things that may be reasonably expected; but as I fully admit, with the approval and assent, and with the laudations to which I have referred, departing from the sound and wholesome and salutary principles which have guided the finance of this country in former years. I confess that I am not able to follow the principles on which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his computations with regard to four months of the year. It appears to me that to compare the proceeds of each Department for four months in one year with the proceeds of each Department in the four months of the previous year is a very unsafe proceeding; but, at the same time, I admit that it is much better that we should not enter into details of this kind, of which we are far less qualified to judge than the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that we should rest satisfied with the announcement that the increase in the Revenue he had anticipated far more than satisfies his expectation in reference to the three branches to which he has referred. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that they are the three branches to take as a test, and I can assure him that no one will be better pleased than I shall be if the ensuing year should commence with a very large surplus. But it is not upon the mere figures and the mere facts stated at the close of the year that we should consider the rights of the question to be determined; we have rather to look to the observance or non-observance of the sound and usual principles in the financial arrangements of the year, as they are necessarily made beforehand. I know very well, Sir, that it is impossible to apply the general rules of finance to years in which the circumstances are altogether of an extraordinary character, But I say that what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is bound to do is to make sufficient allowance in the Estimates for the ordinary variations of the seasons. He must take into consideration whether there has been a good harvest or a bad one, and also the sudden demands that may arise under circumstances of a character altogether unknown beyond what can be anticipated from common experience, and for which extraordinary emergencies he could not be expected to provide in his Budget. I own it was to me a matter of surprise when I found that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer justified his mode of procedure this year by stating that in the year 1860 there had been a proposal in making the financial arrangements of the year to take £ 1,300,000 out of the balances—that is to say, to fall short of equalizing income and expenditure by £ 1,300,000. Her Majesty's Government must know that that was a case in which, long after the financial arrangements of the year were made, a demand which could not have been provided for previously to the extent of £ 5,000,000, came upon the country, and that for such a demand as that it was quite right to lay new taxes, and, as a matter of fact, they were laid. It was quite right to provide for such a charge either by taking money out of the balances, or even by a resort to the principle of borrowing, and it is to ordinary principles alone that general rules must apply. But I contend. Sir, most firmly that there are certain principles that ought to be observed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer while, at the same time, I predict that he will never find it difficult to obtain the cheers of his Friends—indeed, it will be considered a merciful and humane act—if he relaxes them. He will find this to be an exceedingly pleasant proceeding, and one that will get him over many difficulties and enable him to avoid much annoyance—and I know no office of State that entails so much annoyance as that held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—but it will only get him over these difficulties until the time when the bill has to be paid and his accounts have to undergo the rigid scrutiny of this House—the time when matters are found to have gone wrong and when those who have cheered him in the first instance will flatter themselves that at that very time they mistrusted his proceedings although they did not say so. What I hold. Sir, is that it is the duty of the Government to present to the House at the period of the year when the Budget is proposed an effective surplus of income over expenditure, and it is also their duty to include in that surplus, provided for at that time, all the extra expenditure of the year which is within what I may term their reasonable expectation. But here I regret to perceive that I am at variance with the principle held by the present Government. They hold that until the expenditure of the country is exactly defined, until they know exactly what it is—until, in fact, they know what addition is to be made to the charge for Irish education—they are not bound to take it into account. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to reflect in this way—"I may at a later period of the Session bring forward a separate proposition, or be able to show that I have an adequate provision owing to the flourishing state of the Revenue in order to meet this or that charge." Speaking from no inconsiderable experience—for it has been my duty to frame the Budgets of this country on 10 occasions, although the 10th came to grief before it was presented to the House—I will venture to say that such principles as I have enunciated, except in the very worst times, have for the last 34 years been, as far as I know, invariably followed by the Finance Minister. I think, therefore, that I shall not be at fault if I warn the House against allowing the finance of the country to be brought up, first of all in one great Budget, and then in certain little Budgets, as certain Supplementary Estimates are presented to the House. Is it not obvious to the House how the Government may in this way avoid all its difficulties—how, by throwing into Supplementary Estimates certain of its charges, they may avoid the necessity of imposing new taxes? The great object they have is, of course, to avoid the imposition of new taxes; but I hold that it is the duty of the Government, or rather of a Minister of Finance, to take a manly view of the subject, and never to shrink from proposing a new tax, if circumstances should render it necessary to make more ample provision for the service of the country. I say that an ample provision for the whole probable expenditure of the year it is reasonable to expect should be estimated at the time the Budget is presented. And I am also bound to say that it appears to me that if there is one practice more dangerous than another it is that of establishing an exceptional character in the Estimates of the Revenue submitted by the Minister of Finance. I say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no right to present Estimates of Revenue but those which he expects to realize, and then, when he is charged with having proposed too large an expenditure, and with having offered insufficient Estimates to meet it, to fall back on "moderation." That is virtually making two Budgets. One is a Budget which is to go to the House and which is to be put before the country as an authentic public document, and the other is a Budget in the mind of the Minister to be fallen back upon when the day of challenge comes, and when it is shown that the provision made in what was put before the public as an authentic Budget is insufficient to meet the expenditure of the year. I know very well that these are not popular opinions at all. I know that they are entirely out of date and are entirely out of countenance. I will not say that I am at all indifferent to this circumstance, for I lament it deeply. It is in a general way recognized by the House, and probably by every hon. Member who hears me, and I may say it will be recognized by nearly every hon. Gentleman when he goes to his constituents and tells them that it is very desirable to reduce the National Debt. We have seen the effort the Government have made this year in this direction, when it had not to make a provision for the reduction of the National Debt, but to profess to make such a provision. The Government professed to expect a surplus of income over expenditure on the average surpluses every year, and at the same time it made no provision for the extraordinary occurrences of the year. With regard to the next 30 or 40 years, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that we were to expect an average surplus of £ 500,000, but with respect to the present year he makes no special provision. He admits that at this moment there is, according to his figures, a deficit of £ 300,000, and against this he falls back on the improved state of the Revenue. In doing that the right hon. Gentleman's Friends cheer him. ["Hear, hear!"] But I hold. Sir, that it is not by this means that the National Debt is to be acted upon. The right hen. Gentleman has proceeded upon these three principles—and they seem to be not his alone, but principles that are at present in favour—that the proper mode in which to govern the finances of the country is, first, steadily to increase the expenditure; secondly, to vote sums of money for the reduction of the National Debt; and, thirdly, never to propose a new tax, no matter what deficit may exist in the Revenue of the Kingdom. This is the three-fold cord in the financial reputation of the present Government, and, as I have said, the principles on which they proceed do not seem to be disapproved by this House, and apparently not by the country. Let them derive whatever comfort, credit, and satisfaction they may be able to extract from this circumstance, and I have no doubt it will—at any rate, for the time being—bring the cheers of the right hon. Gentleman's Friends. But I say. Sir, that these are not the means by which the Debt of the country has been reduced in the past, and that they are not the means by which it will be reduced in the future.