The money voted on eftimate was, Money without estimate was In 1778, £7,816,807 In 1778, 4,8 4,192 1779, 6,799,874 The money voted on eftimate was, Money without estimate was, The refult of this, his lordfhip obferved, was that the total amount of uneftimated expence in the three laft years had rifen to an excefs of more than twelve millions. The expences of the American war, to the year 1780, amounted to fiftythree millions: but we have now to regret that in the prefent we have created an addition to our funded debt, of ninety-three millions, and loaded the people with the additional fum of 4,500,000l. annually. Under fuch circumstances he had been aftonifhed to fee a confoling fatement.comparing the years 1795—6, and 1783-4. His lord. flip contended that thefe calculations were not fairly taken at correfponding periods, but as best fuited the purpofes of delufion. With refpect to the arguments deduced from the increase of exports and imports, he thought from the prefent circumstances of the country, and the reduced ftate of the enemy, that it was only a temporary augmentation. Nor did it prove any thing with regard to the probable state of the revenue. Their total value in 1795 exceeded that of 1791 by 7,000,000l. yet the re. venue had fallen fhort in 1795 800,000l. The estimates refpecting 1794, 10,485,548 1795, 15,278,910 Total £.31,386,730 the importation of cotton wool, the exports to India, and a comparifon of the permanent taxes, were, his lordship stated, erroneous. The estimates of the navy debt were, he contended, taken at an unfair point of time (Dec. 1783, and May, 1796). Had the comparifon been made between the navy debt outstanding Dec. 1783, and Dec. 1795, the houfe would have feen, that if at the former period it was 15,500,000l. it amounted at the latter to 13,800,000l. and the probable amount at the end of 1796 would be 13,900,000l. In comparing the bank advances to the public in the years 1793 and 1796, the eftimate, he obferved, had recurred to a private account; had it been confined to the public account, it would have fhewn that the advances on the 12th of September 1795 amounted to 11,800.000l; Dec. 9, 1795, to 12,200,000l; and on the 31st Dec. to 11,600,000l; in every inftance exceeding the advances in 1783; in ftating which, it had not been explained whether the navy bills at that time in poffeffion of the bank were included. If they were, to make the comparison with any degree of fairnefs, there ought to be a further fum added to the balances in 1795, equal to the value of navy bilis at that time in poffeffion of the bank. The ftatement of the unfunded debt was, his lordship faid, totally unintelligible. It was reprefented as amounting, in January 1794, to 27,000,000l. May 2d, 1796, as nothing. What then was become of the balance of 11,000,000l. due to the bank, which had antecedently been ftated? Had the fame month in 1796 been felected for the comparifon, which had been chofen in 1784, the increafed amount of January 1796, above January 1784, on the articles of navy debt, bank advances, arrears to the army, and the deficiency of the confolidated fund, appeared, from the accounts on the table, to exceed by 500,000l. the total of the outstanding unfunded debt, which was after the conclufion of a fix years' war of notorious and reprobated extravagance. With relpect to the next article which had been dwelt upon, the finking fund, in 1783 the houfe, he obferved, was told there was no finking fund; in 1796 it was stated as amounting to 2,500,000l. If, at either period, a finking fund was talked of as holding out a furplus, it could only tend to deceive. At both periods there was in fact a thing called a finking fund; but, instead of poffeffing any furplus in 1783, there was a loan of 12,000,000l. in 1796 a loan of 25,500,000l.The most important point which had been stated, the comparative amount of revenue above and below the expenditure in 1783 and 1795, derived its importance from the fact which had been advanced, that, were we now to experience the bieffings of peace, there would be an actual furplus of 3.400,000l. His lordfhip cenfured, in the first place, the form of the propofition held forth for the first time, that the produce of the finking fund is to be deemed a furplus difpofable at the will of parliament, instead of being confidered as forming a part of the neceffary expenditure. He difagreed alfo with the premifes on which the propofition proceeded, as he thought nothing could be more calculated to delude, than to ftate to the country that there was a probability our peace expenditure thould only amount to 15,000,000l. The committee of 1786 reported that the peace eftablishment, including the finking fund, would be 15,478,000l. and that this would not be got upon till 1791, eight years after the war. In 1791, another committee declared they did not conceive a peace eftablifhment could coft lefs than about 16,000,000l. annually. The ave rage expences from 1786 to 1791, as ftated by the committee, was 16,816,9851. Was it then probable, with the increafed half-pay of the army and navy, the barracks, and the numerous profuse new arrangements, that there would not be an additional expenditure of at least 500,000l. annually? His lordship proceeded to controvert the favourable statements made on a former evening by the fecretary of ftate. Rejecting an appeal to averages, which be contended was a lefs accurate mode of calculation than in estimating the product of a future year, it would be to fuppofe, that, as the fame caufe exifts, a fimilar diminution might probably take place. His lordship then produced the following ftatement of what he conceived the probable amount of the taxes. Total Total receipt of the taxes, if the diminution in confequence of the war is as great during the prefent year as it was during the laft To which may be added a fhare of the 53d week Included in the new taxes what was formerly produced by taxes on bills and receipts Old duties on paper, included in the new taxes Total probable receipt of revenue, exclufive of the taxes laid on during the war His lordship stated that the lowest estimate which he could with juftice make of the peace establish ment was what it actually proved on an average of five years, 16,816,9851. To this must be added 200,000l. annually voted for the finking fund, and at leaft 500,000l. additional peace eftablishment. The annual peace expenditure then being 17,500,000l. and the annual receipt only 15,500,000l. there muft be a deficiency of 2,000,000l. To this too must be added the further deficiency in the taxes, which his lordship entered into a calculation to prove must be 500,000l. Ten millions more would, he stated, be found neceffary even in the event of a speedy peace: and this, if borrowed at the fame intereft with the loans of the year, would create a further deficiency of 600,000l. making in all an alarming deficiency to the amount of 3,119,000l. A very large fum even of the prefent diminished receipt would, he contended, be deficient in the event of a peace; as much of what was raffed arofe from the expences incurred by the war. This he was juftified in believing from the experience that the revenue diminished on withdrawing the expenditure of the American war, far above a million 9 £.12,623,583 ,32,000 128,000 70,000 120,000 2,558,000 £.15,531,583 annually. Should it now diminish in a fimilar proportion, it would, at the leaft, create a deficiency of 4,600,000l. Should the present calamitous conteft, however, be protracted another year, there would be a further burden of nearly 2,000,000l. But in the most favourable mode of confidering the fubject, the conclufion was, he faid, ftill inevitable, that there would be an annual deficiency of nearly two millions. His lordship concluded by moving the first of fifteen refolutions founded upon the calculations he had detailed to the houfe. Lord Auckland flated, that it was not from any difrespect that he muft decline examining the pofitions juft laid down. The attempt would be both tedious and unneceffarv; he should therefore confine himself to a defence of the ftatements he had formerly made. The reafon he had not taken the 2d of May 1783, instead of Jan. 7, 1784, was, that he was comparing our fituation in war with that of the country at the end of 1783, when a general pacification had taken place. Refpecting the India ftock, the period which had been propofed by the noble lord would have made very little diffe- rence; rence; and therefore a great stress had been laid on the increafed dividend in 1784: but if the increafe had not refted on the folid ground of increafing profperity, it would, in the end, have only depreffed in ftead of raifing the ftock. As to the increase of the exports and imports having not occafioned a proportionate increase of revenue, the net produce of our revenue was no criterion of the extent of our foreign trade: but it was an important fact, that, in 1783, the value of British manufactures exported was 10,409,000l. and in 1795, it had rifen to 16,326,000l. The ftatement of the noble earl made the importation of cotton wool for the ufe of our manufactures to be four times as great as in the first years of the peace. As a general proof of his ftatement of the finances being exact, lord Auckland obferved that it was in the recollection of the houfe, that the annual amount of the permanent taxes, on a three years' average, to the 5th of June, 1796, according to the papers before parliament, had been 13,729,000l. and with the addition of one-fixth of a 53d week, which was 31,000l. amounted to 13,761,000l. Deducting for the taxes impofed from 1784 to 1792, and for other changes and improvements in the revenue during that period, 1,400,000l. the remainder was 12,561,000l. With refpect to the navy debt being given from May and not from December, it was the exprefs purpofe of the comparative view to exhibit our actual fituation, and to fhew our refources fuch as enabled us, in this advanced period of the war, to provide for 8,000,000l. of navy debt, and to reduce it as low as in a time of peace. In the fame manner the bank 1796. debt had been stated at. 6,000,000l. and not at 11,000,000l. becaufe provifion had lately been made by parliament for funding 5,000,000l. of what was then due. It would, his lord fhip contended, be ftrange to fay that the produce of the finking fund was not difpofable by parliament. Leaving this, however, it would be found on infpection that the statement had afferted that the annual million, fet apart in 1786, was to be inviolably applied to the reduction of the debt till the accumulation fhall amount to 4,000,000l. a year, when there will revert to the difpofal of parliament, taxes equal to whatever part of the national debt may be repurchafed by the application of 4,000,000l. a year. Refpecting the peace eftablishment, his lordship faid, the statement would prove that he had obferved it might eventually exceed the fuppofed amount: but that the return of peace is likely to increafe the revenue, and at any rate, that the computation of a furplus revenue of 3,400,000l. would give near 1,000,000l. a year. In the details of the peace eftablishment which the houfe had just heard, fums were included, to the amount of feveral millions, which did not come within any defcrip. tion of a regular peace establishment. The data on which the calculation for the 3,400,000l.had been doubted by the noble earl, to think that the revenue ought to be eftimated, not on an average of years, but from the third year of a war, was a fufficient refutation of its validity. Taking the taxes to anfwer the charge created by the war, according to their estimate, which was 4,500,000l. of that fum about 750,000l. was applicable for redeeming the principal, and formed In ftating the laft year's account, an addition had been made beyond the amount, which appeared in the accounts laid before parliament, of about 300,000l. for bounties to feamen, for the fifty-third week; for the produce of repealed taxes; and for fome smaller particulars. The average of the fum above stated will be about The land and malt Annual profit by lottery Eaft-India payment Accumulated profit of the firft finking fund Deducting from the above, 15,000,cool. as a fuppofed peace expenditure, there would remain a higher fum than had been given in the statement of the 2d of May, of which, as has been already explained, above 2,800,000l. was confidered as applicable to the discharge of the debt. Had the account been taken, as it might, on a peace average, the amount would have been 450,000l. higher. His lordship ended by ftating that every exifting account of our revenue and refources, the flourishing ftate of our agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, and every apparent evidence of internal profperity, gave a confolatory and cheerful picture of the fituation and profpects of the British empire. £.13,730,000 2,558,000 of Lauderdale; and obferved, that if he was accurate, the expences of the country certainly exceeded the revenue. It was not, his lordfhip faid, his intention to prefent a gloomy picture of our refources: he knew them to be folid and fubftantial; but every thing depended upon œconomy and prudent management. Lord Hawkesbury objected to taking the last year into a compari fon with the others, on account of feveral circumftances which operated to diminish the annual produc tion of the permanent revenue; fuch as the diftillers and the malt brewers ceafing to work, from the high price of grain, and the diftrefs of the poorer fort of the community from the fame caufe. To these the drawback upon fugars might be fup-added: and of all the new taxes of 1794 and 1795, few except the tax The earl of Moira entered into feveral calculations, which ported the statements of the earl upon |