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by different causes, which, during
the present year, would not be in
operation. Thus, in 1825, no less
a sum than 1,050,000l. of duties,
had been refunded to dealers in
wine upon the stock in their pos-
session. In consequence, likewise,
of the alterations in the system of
bounties
during preceding session, there
would this year be a reduction of
50,000l. Another, and an unfore-
seen diminution of the revenue
had arisen from an oversight in
the new acts for simplifying the
whole system of the customs. It
had been intended that the duty
on tobacco should continue to be
four shillings, the rate at which it
stood in the beginning of the year;
but by some mischance, scarcely
avoidable where such a mass of
scattered and minute regulations
were to be dealt with, the unin-
tentional but practical effect of the
new acts had been, that one shil-
ling of the duty had lapsed; and
the duty having thus been, for the
latter half of the year, only three
shillings, instead of four shillings,
that branch of the revenue fell
450,000l. short of what it would
otherwise have yielded. These
deductions from the revenue of
1825 exceeded a million and a half;
yet, as they could have no place
during the present year, they
ought to be added to the
37,546,000l. received indepen-
dently of them in the preceding
year; and the customs and excise
would present, for 1826, a revenue
of $39,096,000l. But as, in the
present state of the country, still
labouring under the pressure
which it had felt for so many
months, it would be unwise and
improvident to calculate on a
revenue equally large with that of
1825, all the items had been taken

below their proceeds in the last
year, and due allowance made for
other unavoidable deficiencies.
There would be a deficiency of
350,000l. arising from the reduc-
tion of taxes in 1825, and a defi-
ciency of about 1,300,000l., in the
excise, produced by diminished

es which had been effected consumption. Allowance for all

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this had been made in the estimates; and the stamps, the postoffice, and the assessed taxes, had all been taken at lower rates than they had yielded last year, the stamps being estimated at 48,000l., the post office at 46,000l., and the assessed taxes at 190,000l., less than had been received from them in 1825. On the other hand the miscellaneous items had increased. A sum of 100,000l. was due from Holland, under a treaty with that government, and ought to have been paid in 1825. It had not been paid; but, having been now remitted, it would go to the service of the current year. About 108,000l. would be received from lotteries; for, although the last lottery had been contracted for two or three years ago, its existence was protracted, in consequence of the usual course of conducting lotteries, for two or three years after they had been contracted for. In consequence of an arrangement with the East-India company, that corporation had become bound to pay 60,000l. in consideration of an increase of our naval force for the security of their possessions. The new silver coinage for Ireland had cost the country last year 500,000l.: in the present year the old coin would come back, and be available for the public service, to the amount it was calculated, of about 400,000l. With these additions to the usual revenue, making every allowance for the probable depres

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In regard to the debt due to the Bank, which, it had been alleged, fettered the Bank in its operations, and disabled it from giving to the public that aid which it would otherwise have the means of affording, the chancellor of the Exchequer allowed, that it would be a very desirable object to effect a reduction in the amount of the advances made by the Bank, by which that debt had been constituted. The Bank held Exchequer bills of two sorts: the first sort consisted of bills upon which the Bank had originally and directly advanced money to government. The other sort were bills which they had purchased in the market, without any advance to government, and which they might have sold without affecting their transactions with government in regard to the former. Of the first sort of bills, the Bank held, on the 5th of January, 1826, 6,000,000l. In February, for the purpose of relieving the money market from the pressure which seemed to operate on this species of security, the Bank had purchased to the amount of 2,000,000l., upon an undertaking by government that they should be repaid in the course of the present year. The Bank was farther a creditor of the government for rather more than 3,000,000l., advanced for the purpose of paying off the four per cent dissentients: but provision had already been made for these last advances by charging them upon the sinking fund, and, at the close of the present year, they would be very nearly extinguished.

There still remained, therefore, about 8,000,000l., which it was the intention of government to pay off as convenience and their means allowed; and to begin by repaying to the Bank, during the present year, the 6,000,000l. of Exchequer bills, upon which direct advances had been made to government.

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The statement of the chancellor of the Exchequer, holding out much happier prospects than, from the distress which prevailed in the country, could have been anticipated, was received by the House with general satisfaction. Mr. Maberly, however, and Mr. Hume maintained, not only that there had been no reduction of the public debt, but that there had been an actual increase both in the capital, and in the annual charge, and that taxation had been raised, instead of being diminished. The capital of the debt, it was alleged, had been augmented by no less a sum than 61,646,000l. between 1819 and 1826, and the annual charge had grown in proportion. This assertion rested entirely on a very obvious fallacy, arising out of a total misapprehension of the nature of what is called the deadweight-scheme, and of the arrangements, which, in pursuance of it,

had been made with the Bank for discharging part of the half-pay and pension list. Mr. Hume's assertions, that taxation had increased during the last three years, was still more obviously and utterly erroneous. When such assertions are hazarded in direct opposition to figures, and the votes of the House proving that, from 1816 to 1825, more than twenty-seven millions and a half of taxes had positively been reduced, and no new taxes imposed, they argue great

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It was, therefore, he argued selfevident, that, in the eleventh year of peace, when the people had a right to expect some relief from taxation, they were actually paying a million more annually than they had done in the years which immediately followed the conclusion of the war. But Mr. Hume, while he could not pretend that new taxes had been imposed, or deny that many old ones had been repealed or reduced, forgot that the increase of the revenue was merely the result of an increase in the consumption of excisable articles, and that this increased consumption was the effect of the reduction of the Excise duties. That reduction, by lowering the price of the articles, both enabled many persons, beyond the reach of whose means they had formerly been placed, to become consumers, and enabled those who had always been consumers to become consumers to a greater extent-and all this was a direct addition to the comforts and enjoyments of the people. In one sense the country may have paid more than before; but that was only because people had it in their power to enjoy a greater quantity of necessaries or conveniences. The increase of

revenue with diminished duties was the best index of the increase of comfort among the great mass of the population.

The state of the public debt, subsequently underwent much more lengthened and detailed discussion on two different occasions; and on both occasions the great questions were, not whether it ought to be reduced, and might be reduced, but, what was its actual amount, and whether in point of fact, any diminution of it had been effected during late years. On the 10th of March, the chancellor of the Exchequer having moved that the House should go into a committee of supply, the Speaker's leaving the chair was opposed by Mr. Maberly, who brought forward, as an amendment, a series of resolutions concerning the state of the unfunded debt, the effects of the measure called the dead weight, and the real amount of the funded unredeemed debt. The amount of unfunded debt in Exchequer bills was, on the 6th January, 1826, thirty-seven millions and a half; and these securities, he said, were so apt, from their very nature, to bring both the government and the Bank into sudden difficulties, that the reduction, or the funding of them ought never to have been lost sight of. On the 11th of October, 1825, there were 20,160,000l. receivable. as revenue, and then due, being in fact promissory notes payable on demand, while government had not a shilling with which to meet them. The consequence was, that, on any depreciation of these securities, government, in order to prevent them from being paid in as revenue, was compelled to take measures to keep up their value; and as this was always effected by

means of the Bank, the Bank in its turn was hampered by its connections with the transactions of government. In December 1825, Exchequer bills were at a discount of 80s.; government became apprehensive that they would become revenue; the Bank was sent into the market, and, by purchasing, brought them up to par. In addition to this, the interest was raised from 1d. to 2d. per diem, to guard against any extraordinary depreciation; yet, in the following February, they were again at a discount of 21s., and the Bank again came into the market, and, by its purchases, brought them up

to par. Various circumstances might have prevented the Bank from making these purchases without injuring its own credit; and the consequence would have been that, by the paying in of these bills as revenue, the Exchequer would not have possessed the means of paying the dividends, unless the Bank had been able to advance the whole amount. But as the Bank had already advanced 5,548,8171., to pay the January dividends, it was highly improbable that it could, at such a moment, have advanced an additional sum of upwards of three millions (which would have been required) without placing itself in a most hazardous situation. The Bank had been able to avert these consequences by its purchases; but, as it might often turn out otherwise, nothing could be more improvident and unwise than to allow so large an amount of an issue of so dangerous a nature, to remain unfunded. He, therefore, moved as a resolution, "That notwithstanding the low rate of interest which has been paid on Exchequer bills, it has been both inexpedient and dangerous to leave so large an

amount of debt unfunded; that it might have been funded on most advantageous terms, and at a saving of some millions to the country, whilst, by leaving it unfunded till a period of political difficulty arrives, it cannot fail seriously to affect public credit, and to impair the energies of the country; and that it appears, therefore, to this House, that it is highly expedient to reduce the unfunded debt within more reasonable limits."

The other resolutions of Mr. Maberly went to impeach the aecuracy of the official returns of the national debt, as having stated it more than an hundred millions below its real amount. First of all, the dead-weight had made an addition to the debt of nearly seventy-five millions. That arrangement was, in fact, a grant by government of an annuity of 2,800,000l. for a term of forty-five years. The value of this annuity, now that it had 414 years to run (33 years of the term having elapsed since it was first granted) was 74,632,000l.; and to this extent, the transaction was the raising of a loan by the country, and an addition to the public debt. The whole measure was one of the most dangerous and improvident to which recourse had ever been had; and it was not less so, because the Bank had been induced to purchase a part of this annuity, for which they had advanced 13,000,000l., while there was no probability of their being able to sell what they had thus locked up their funds in buying. So far as it remained unsold, the act authorizing the arrangement ought immediately to be repealed. By disregarding this burden, as well as some others, the amount of the public debt had been stated by

government at more than an hundred millions below its real amount. That statement omitted altogether the debt due on the life annuities and long annuities; no value had been put upon this large proportion of the public debt, any more than on the dead-weight: but the value of these charges, according to the statements of the government's accountants, exceeded 101,000,000l., a sum which must be added to what had hitherto been held out to the country as the total amount of the debt. On the 5th of January, 1819, the debt was 832,000,000l.; and, since that period, notwithstanding the boast of a Sinking-fund, and all the amount of our annual taxation, it had increased enormously. From returns signed by officers at the National Debt office it appeared, that, in January, 1826, the debt was 61,646,6367, higher than in January, 1819, the life annuities being valued, in both years, upon the same principles. A consequence, and at the same time a proof, of this increase in the debt, was the increase in the annual charge, which, in 1826, exceeded that of 1819 by 31,3951. Thus, in the course of seven years, the capital of the debt had been increased by nearly 62,000,000l., and the annual charge, by more than 31,000; although government considered themselves to have saved the country between 1,500,000l. and 1,600,000l. by the conversion of the five per cents into four per cents. The resolutions now proposed stated the fact, that by granting an annuity of 2,800,000l. for fortyfive years, the amount of the public debt had been increased by a sum equal, according to returns made to the House, in March, 1826, to 74,632,0514.-that, exclusive of the portion of such annuity which

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had been purchased by the Bank of England, nearly 50,000,000/ still remained unsold; that, under present circumstances, it would be inexpedient to sell the remaining part, and would be expedient to repeal so much of the act t creating the annuity as related to the part unsold, and to charge the amount necessary for defraying naval and military pensions from July, 1828 (up to which period the e annuity had been purchased by the Bank), on the consolidated or sinking fund: and further, "that the capital of the funded unredeemed debt of the United Kingdom stood in the finance accounts, on 5th January, 1825, at 781,123,2221. 15s. 6d. whereas the real capital debt of the country approaches to nearly 900,000,000l. inasmuch as the capital of the terminable annuities is not included in the above sum.

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On the other hand, the chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Herries, maintained that it was impossible to conceive any thing more imperfect, and more confused, than the views on which these resolutions were founded, or any thing more fallacious than the supposed facts which they pretended to embody. Nothing could be more inconsistent with truth, than to accuse government of having been inattentive to the reduction of the unfunded debt. In 1816, on the termination of the war, that debt had amounted to 61,000,000l. in January, 1824, it amounted to only 31,000,000l. a reduction of nearly one half. In 1818 the bullion committee had recommended a reduction of the unfunded debt to the extent of about 10,000,000l., and with this recommendation government had not only complied, but had gone beyond it, a reduction having been effected, not of

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