come of the country beyond its expenditure, of not less than L. 5,000,000. Now he (Mr Tierney) did not say so the surplus might be more, or it might be less; but whichever it was, he could not agree to it after the hurried manner in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had wished to entrap the approbation of the house. He protested again and again that he could not say that there ought to be a surplus of L. 5,000,000 in order to provide for the exigencies of the public service, or to make such a progressive reduction of the national debt as was likely to afford to the country a prospect of future relief from its present burdens. As he could not say this, he should move the previous question, and not a negative, upon these resolutions; and he should move it upon this ground, that it would give to the house more time to consider them. The last proposition of the right honourable gentleman was this-"That it is expedient now to increase the income of the country by the imposition of taxes to the amount of L. 3,000,000 per annum." The right honourable gentleman must forgive him if he raised his voice most loudly against these L. 3,000,000 of new taxes. He could not figure to himself how the imposition of such a burden was to be reconciled with the boasts which had been made of the increasing prosperity of the country. The right honourable gentleman had himself admitted the complete stagnation of our trade; whether he admitted it or no was very immaterial, since nothing was to be heard, from one end of the country to the other, except the distress in which all classes of our manufacturers were plunged. The petitions which the house had received from the agricultural part of the

community clearly proved that their fortunes were not in a much more flourishing state than those of the manufacturer; whilst the complaints which they were now daily and hourly receiving regarding the heaviness of the poor-rates, showed that the evil was not confined to particular districts, but spread far and wide throughout the whole nation: and yet what was the answer that the house was making every twenty-four hours to these expressions of misery and distress? Why the answer was, "We will impose upon you L. 3,000,000 of additional taxes.' The right honourable gentleman opposite was even now saying to them," You have not been taxed enough; I have taken L. 18,000,000 of taxes from off your shoulders, but I ought to have left them on: you would then have been much happier than you now are; and in order to restore you to a part of that happiness which you have lost, I will give you back again 1-6th of the taxes which I had taken off." This was a kind of reasoning, which, however it might be glossed over within the walls of that house, would be seen in all its full absurdity out of doors. In spite of the flourishing speeches of the noble lord, and the glowing language of the Prince Regent himself, the people will not believe the country to be prosperous, especially when L. 3,000,000 of new taxes are to be added among the stock of its prosperity. As a stockholder himself, he would rather leave the sinking fund at 2,000,000l. than have it raised to L. 5,000,000 on the terms now proposed: this was a mere opinion of his own, and his reason for entertaining it was, that he should thus be released from a strong odium, to which he should otherwise be perpetually subjected. Besides, what difference was there

to the stockholder, practically speak. ing, whether he had a sinking fund of L. 2,000,000 or L. 5,000,000? The L. 10,000,000 were gone for ever, and would be applied from time to time to the service of the year. He lamented that we were driven to such a breach of faith, but we were driven to it by a sad and now an inevitable necessity. It might therefore be a fair question for any one to ask, in what way were our finances to be again put upon a fair footing? To such a question he would reply, that there were only three methods-a constant application to the sinking fund; an imposition of new taxes; or, what he thought better than both, a reform and retrenchment in every department of state. He maintained that the house had no right to impose a single tax upon the country, until it had shown that a reduction had been made in every establishment which could be reduced, and that it had no right to goad and irritate the people by new imposts, until it had shown them that there was no other resource to which it could apply consistently either with safety or credit to the nation. The right honourable gentleman had now begun to discover, that some diminution of expence might be effected by a different mode of collecting the revenue; but he was sorry to say that he did not much trust in his discoveries. The Noble Lord, too, when he moved for the appointment of the Committee of Finance, had said that this should be the last year of its sitting. This had not much the appearance of economy, especially when it was recollected how that committee had discharged its duties. Had that committee examined into the nature of any public offices, except those connected with the Army and Ordnance? Had

it ever attempted to probe matters to the very bottom, as had been done in that Committee over which their late Speaker, Lord Colchester and another honourable gentleman in his eye (Mr Bankes), had so ably presided? No, nothing like it: every thing that came from that committee came in a round-about way— from the Ministers themselves; just as if it were an offence for any body but themselves to say that Ministers were to be trusted in matters of economy. It was for the principle of economy that he combated, and against that principle Ministers as vehemently contended. His friends had tried them upon the question of the two Lords of the Admiralty. These Lords had only L. 1,000 a piece, so that the saving which they had proposed only amounted to L. 2,000 per annum; this, it was said, was scarce worth talking about: he allowed it; but maintained that the principle on which the reduction was founded was invaluable. The honourable member then adverted to the magnitude of our military establishments, which, if they were not reduced speedily, would end in our total ruin. Much had been said of the imposing attitude which we preserved towards Europe; he wished to know which of these two attitudes was the most imposingto keep up a large army whose expences we could not pay, or a small army whose expences we could pay, and whose numbers we could increase whenever we chose or had occasion for them. But then it was hard, very hard, to part with a little patronage: yet before they taxed the meanest beggar in the country, he had a right to say to them, "Show me that you have avoided all unnecessary expenditure." But this his Majesty's Ministers could not show, because they had been guilty of the most profuse extravagance. They had maintained

an army which was too large both for the safety of the country and of the constitution, and had then made it an argument for increasing our ordnance establishments, because a large army always required a large ordnance. To compensate, however, for this increase, they had made great reductions in the navy; greater reductions indeed never bad been made in it than were made at present, and the reason of it was this-our navy officers could not bow or scrape as well as the officers of our army, nor play off with equal agility the tricks and artifices of skilful courtiers. And yet, as our navy could stand our guard when our army could not, the reduction ought not to have been so disproportionate in the two services. Low as it had been made in the one, he thought that it ought to be made still lower in the other; and if the noble lord's assertion be true, that we are likely to continue at peace with all the world, let him show us his belief of it by another reduction in our military establishments. The army, however, was not the only department of our expenditure in which great savings might soon be accomplished. The expences of many of our colonies might be diminished; a consolidation of offices under the revenue might take place, and the office of a third Secretary of State might be entirely abolished. Indeed, he saw no more reason for a third Secretary of State then he did for a third Archbishop. The necessity of a Board of Control might also be taken into consideration. Might it not also be advisable to look at the HorseGuards, and to consider the necessity of having a Secretary-at-war in a time of profound peace? It might be uncomfortable for honourable gentlemen to hear of such reductions, but it was scarcely less uncomfortable for him to come forward and advocate the

necessity of making them. He maintained, that any Administration which owed its continuance in power to such support as this extravagance supplied, ought not to stand for a single moment; and added, that no Administration could be strong in public opinion except that which took care that every farthing of money exacted from the public was expended in real and not in nominal services. But it was now argued, that though the present measure was one of the strongest necessity, the country had such confidence in his Majesty's present advisers as not to have any objection to acceding to it. He would allow, that the division which had taken place on the motion submitted by him to the house the other night upon the state of the nation, was such as to show that the House had the most implicit confidence in the Noble Lord and the right honourable gentleman opposite; he would allow that they were the best, the wisest, the most economical, and the most consistent Ministers that could be found in the country; yet still, allowing all the merit that was due to that overpowering majority, he must say that, if his motion had been carried, they would have been doing on the 18th of May what they were now proceeding to do on the 7th June. He again repeated, that great reductions must be made, if the Government wished to render the taxes at all palatable; and concluded his speech by moving the previous question.

Lord Castlereagh would not trouble the house at any great length on the present occasion, because the real question to be discussed was contained in a very narrow compass. There which were three considerations it rested; the first was, whether the country, under its present circumstances, was necessitated to make any financial efforts at all; the second was,

upon

the magnitude of those efforts; and the third, the time when those efforts ought to be made, if it should be judged necessary to make them at all. Before he entered upon these subjects, he must make a few observations on the preliminary remarks of the right honourable gentleman opposite. The burden of the right honourable gentlemen's song all the evening had been, "I have no confidence that the Ministers of the crown will dispose of the supplies in a proper manner, and I therefore call upon the crown to dismiss them." This was natural in the right honourable gentleman; he could not help feeling sore upon the division against him on a former evening, and angry at the members who had swollen the numbers against him. The right honourable gentlemen had said, that if they had voted with him on a former evening, they would have discussed on the 18th of May what they were now discussing on the 7th of June. With due deference to him, that was not correct; if he had succeeded in his motion of the other evening, the crown must have looked out for other Ministers; and, in that case, he (Lord Castlereagh) was inclined to think that the right honourable gentleman, with all the dangerous responsibility which he had described as likely to attach to any person who now took up the reins of Administration, would not have been able to prove himself so efficient a Minister as to enter so soon upon the duties of his office. The right honourable gentleman had also protested against the Finance Committee; and in every case where the committee bad not been nominated by himself, had represented it as a grievance. When the committee was originally appointed, he (Lord Castlereagh) had said that the House would see

whether the Government were not willing to carry the principle of reform as far as was possible. He would merely refer to their conduct in regard to drawbacks and bounties in the collection of the revenue. In fact, in a future session it would be the duty of the Committee of Finance to charge itself with the important subject of drawbacks and bounties. His Lordship was also disposed to complain a little of some of the other preliminary observations of the right honourable gentleman, particularly of those which were intended to convey a false impression into the country. Nearly half of his address had been employed in insinuating alarm into the minds of public creditors, that Ministers were meditating a breach of faith; that the object of the propo sition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the destruction of the sinking fund as established by Mr Pitt, and afterwards modified by Parliament. Yet nothing could be more unfounded than such a supposition. Nothing like an invasion of the sinking fund had been contemplated. The arrangement of to-night was consistent with its perfect existence; for the resolution was simply to put into operation the clause which Mr Fox himself had introduced. When truly viewed, it was in principle the very measure which an honourable gentleman (Mr Grenfell) had brought forward on a previous night, but which he had not dared to press to a division; and which was then premature, because it was the wholesome practice of Parliament not to pledge Ministers upon any particular details, until the whole of their system had been duly digested. His Lordship was persuaded that not a single observation had fallen from his right. honourable friend (the Chancellor