§ I wish it to continue, but I think that those who most wish it to continue will also be most ready to examine from time to time the arrangements under which these matters are regulated, and particularly those arrangements which relate to the administration and the payment of our old debt and the conditions under which those arrangements are carried on, and any new circumstances that may arise. I invite the Committee to such an examination this evening, and in the course of it I hope I may be pardoned if I appear sometimes to deal with matters which to the Committee will be elementary matters. But I wish to make my 1008 statement of a complicated and difficult subject clear to the public out of doors; and, therefore, it is necessary to include elementary matters in this statement.