tional course. For a question affecting the expenditure and taxation of the country that House was the proper tribunal. He did not agree with Mr. Disraeli that all the required information was already obtained. The settlement of such a question should be, as far as possible, upon a permanent basis, and the information for that purpose should be acquired, not secretly by the Government, but openly, and placed upon record. Mr. Herries considered that the House had a right to know what the Government intended to do by means of this Committee. The course proposed by Mr. Disraeli was not only the fairest, but would give more satisfaction to the country than a Committee could. Mr. Bright said, upon a close examination of the amendment, it contained nothing more real than the appointment of a Committee; it did not pledge the House to any reduction of expenditure; if it had done so, nothing would have induced him to vote for a Committee in opposition to such a substantial proposition. If, how ever, the Committee should be an impartial one, he thought the inquiry would be better conducted in their hands than in those of the Government, who could not resist external influences; and that all parties whose salaries should be diminished would bear the reductions more patiently after an investigation and a report by a Committee. Mr. H. Drummond observed, that Lord John Russell asked the House to inquire-of whom? It could only be of himself. The proposed Committee was not one to reduce expenditure-it was only to inquire; and if this motion were carried, it would be useless to entertain any future question of financial reform. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied to the objections of Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Hume, and other Members, and declared that the object of the Government was to effect whatever reductions should be expedient and practicable in the opinion of an impartial Committee. Lord J. Manners anticipated no beneficial result from a Committee constituted as this would be, and called upon the House to prefer the amendment to the motion. After a brief reply from Lord J. Russell, the House divided, negativing the amendment by 250 to 159. Mr. Horsman then moved that the inquiry be extended to the incomes of ecclesiastical dignitaries, urging reasons derived from the amount of those incomes which were enjoyed for life, and the disproportion they bore to the incomes of Ministers of State, Judges, Ambassadors, and other public officers. The Bishops performed duties; but the capitular bodies, deans and canons, were acknowledged sinecurists, yet they annually divided amongst themselves a larger amount of income than the salaries of any one of the departments of the public service included in the motion of Lord J. Russell. Sir George Grey said, Mr. Horsman was not doing justice to the object in view by mixing up this question with one totally foreign to it. Episcopal and capitular revenues stood upon a different footing from official, judicial, and diplomatic incomes, which were derived from public taxation, whereas the former came from other sources. He urged the House not to adopt this amendment, which would pro Mr. Goulburn animadverted severely upon the speech of Mr. Horsman, who, he said, had endeavoured to lower the prelates of the Church in public estimation. After some remarks from Colonel Sibthorp against the amendment, and from Mr. Mangles in its favour, the House, upon a division, negatived it by 208 to 95. The original motion was then agreed to. Having thus given a sketch of the financial transactions of the Session so far as the Government was concerned in them, we proceed to notice the principal questions raised by individual Members upon subjects connected with public expenditure and retrenchment. The cause of economy found early in the Session two champions actuated by very different views, though concurring in the same end, Mr. Cob den, the leader of the Free Trade party, and Mr. Henry Drummond, the representative of the landown ers and farmers of West Surrey. The two motions came on for discussion within a few days of each other, that of Mr. Cobden on the 8th of March, and that of Mr. Drummond on the 13th. Both produced an animated and interesting debate, terminating in the same result, a majority for the Government, though much larger in the latter case than in the former. Mr. Cobden availed himself of the occasion of the House going into Committee of Supply to ask the consent of the House to resolutions in favour of the reduction of the Public Expenditure. He knew no other way of bringing the general subject of expenditure under the review of Parliament, before voting away the public money. He disclaimed any hostility to Ministers, and repudiated the idea of moving a vote of want of confi-. dence. He also disclaimed any sudden restoration of the expenditure of 1835 as the standard; the expenditure might be gradually reduced, and he would be content with the average of 1835, 6, and 7. He then went into a long array of figures, showing that although the interest of the public debt was less in January, 1850 [28,323,0001.], by 200,000l. than it was in January, 1836, the expenditure had increased from 44,395,000l. in 1836, to 50,848,000l. in 1849, an excess of 6,453,000l. Under the pressure of the Financial Reform movement, the expenditure was reduced last year by 3,344,000l. and this year he believed there would be a further reduction of 1,000,0007.; leaving a net excess of 5,500,000l. The Civil expenditure had increased from 4,225,000l. in 1835, to 6,702,0007. in 1849. He went over the heads of the expenditure, showing where reductions might be made,-pensions suffered to lapse; boards consolidated into single working commissionerships; embassies suppressed, like those to Hanover and Bavaria, or reduced; judicial salaries, &c., reducedexcessive consular expenditure cut down; such scandals as the expense of the new Houses of Parliament prevented, and other cases. But the principal excess of expenditure was under the Military and Naval heads. Now, the experience of the last two years, even of Europe in its convulsions, had shown that there was no disposition on the part of the bulk of the people, in any nation, to pass their own frontiers and make war upon any other nation. Lord John Russell himself had gone as far as Mr. Cobden in admitting the right of Colonial self-government, with self-taxation and self-defence. On these grounds, therefore, it was possible to make a large reduction of our forces. A further reduction was suggested by the organic absurdities shown in the excessive number of officers in regiments and in ships of war. It would be quite possible to reduce the total expenditure by 10,000,000l. -equal to the whole expenditure of the United States before the Mexican war, and more than the whole expenditure of Prussia. A gentleman named Norman had written a pamphlet in the City to show that the country was lightly taxed: it might be true that the wealth of the country had increased, but the wealth of the country did not pay the increased taxation. Mr. Cobden concluded by moving resolutions, setting forth the increase of expenditure since 1835; the absence of danger abroad, or civil necessity at home, to warrant the increase; the effect of taxation in burdening the people, in check 66 ing employment, and fostering pauperism and crime; summing up with the conclusion that, It is expedient that this House take steps to reduce the annual expenditure, with all practicable speed, to an amount not exceeding the sum which, within the last fifteen years, has been proved to be sufficient for the maintenance of the security, honour, and dignity of the nation." Mr. Labouchere devoted his reply mainly to a statistical argument that the apparent increase of 6,000,000l. in expenditure did not indicate a real augmentation. In the Naval and Military expenditure, the apparent increase, rather more than 4,000,000l., might be traced to such causes as the accumulated excess of expenditure left from previous years, the transfer of the Packet service formerly paid out of the Post-Office revenue, accidental demands like the payment of head-money for capture of pirates, construction of great permanent works, dockyards, &c., involving a payment once for all, with other causes, as materially qualifying the comparison. The only scope for reduction would be in the effective service; and that had actually been reduced since 1848 by the amount of 1,447,000l.; with a further reduction in the current year of 424,000l. Under the Civil head, the apparent increase of 2,478,000l. was due to such causes as the following:-charges forced upon Government by the House, under the pressure of demands from constituencies,-such as harbours of refuge, payments in aid of county-rates, and the like; charges for unforeseen calamities, among which might be reckoned the burning of the old Houses of Parliament and the building of the new; charges transferred from other accounts, such as official franking, fees replaced by fixed payments, and the like. Mr. Labouchere contended that many of these payments, such as those for the improvement of Ireland, were dictated by a wise and profitable economy. It was the same with the building of large dock works, which provided for maintaining a moderate fleet, with ready means of extension; and while Austria had an army of 400,000 men, the highly-officered organization of the British army maintained a framework capable of rapid increase on sudden need. Mr. Labouchere made considerable use of a chart published by Mr. Wyld, presenting, as in the undulations of the Andes or Apenines, two lines representing the fluctuations in the expenditure and in the commerce of the country,— expenditure falling from a tremendous height in 1813-15, creeping up a little since 1835, but declining again since 1848; prosperity steadily rising since 1812, and now going on with diminished taxation and reduced expenditure. Mr. Spooner said, he would not give the vote which he intended to give for Mr. Cobden's resolutions, if he thereby pledged himself to reduce the effective force of the army or navy; but there was ample room for reduction without touching their efficiency, and he could not deny the propositions contained in the resolutions, as he must do by voting against them. Mr. Spooner then turned aside into the free trade and currency questions. Mr. Hume insisted that Mr. Labouchere had not answered the speech of Mr. Cobden, whose statements as to the amount of the increase in our expenditure, and the causes of it, he justified. Mr. Hume VOL. XCII. wanted to remove taxes that pressed upon industry, but none could be remitted without a reduction of expenditure, and no special reasons had been assigned for larger establishments now than in 1835. He enumerated various heads of expense-military defence of the colonies, steam fleet, half-pay and pensions-which called for retrenchment. Mr. Herries, with as sincere a desire as Mr. Hume to reduce taxation, could not support the resolutions, which, as worded, were calculated to mislead. He dissected the resolutions, and either denied some of the propositions they contained, or condemned the spirit in which they were expressed, and treated the motion as one of no practical character, but intended to entrap votes, the Committee being the proper stage for reducing the estimates. Mr. M. Gibson remarked that there was no other mode of developing the general views of Mr. Cobden upon the financial state of the country than that which he had chosen. He (Mr. Gibson) supported the resolutions mainly on the ground of his desire to carry out the policy commenced in 1842 namely, the removal of taxes that impeded production, limited the field of labour, and did more harm to the general interests of the country than service to the State. He put these taxes on one side, and the military and naval expenditure, to protect us against some remote contingent evil, on the other, and he asked whether it was not more rational to incur this contingent risk and give relief to industry? He did not wish to leave the country defenceless, but it was for the Government to show either that the services in [K] 1835 were inadequate, or that there were reasons for a permanent increase of 6,000,0007. He replied to the arguments of Mr. Labouchere in defence of the augmented expenditure; contended that the menacing parades of our fleets in different parts of the world were calculated to excite jealousy, and alienate other nations, instead of extending our commercial relations; and concluded by an appeal to the agricultural interest to support this and other motions for cutting down the expenditure. Mr. Henley regarded the objects of the motion with suspicion, though he should have been inclined to support it if it had been of a really practical nature. Lord J. Russell thought Mr. Cobden had made a most judicious speech in favour of a most injudicious motion, the terms of which implied that there had been successive augmentations of expenditure up to the present time; whereas in the last two years the reductions in the military and naval estimates amounted to 2,100,000l. Mr. Gibson had demanded reasons for the increase of expenditure since 1835; but Mr. Labouchere had distinctly explained the reasons, and Lord John repeated that explanation in a fuller form, pointing out items thrown upon the military estimates which did not properly belong to them; and with respect to those of the navy, the Government had at one time been obliged to defend themselves against the charge of not having sufficiently increased that branch of the service. He justified the increase in the Ordnance Department; and with regard to Mr. Cobden's proposal, to cut down the army expenditure to 10,000,000l., Lord John observed that he had lost sight of the noneffective service, which cost 3,784,000l., the effective being only 10,518,000l., of which Mr. Cobden proposed to take away more than half. There was, in fact, but 2,000,000l. upon which to operate in the way of reduction, Mr. Cobden, he thought, without having duly considered the subject, had rather committed himself by some speeches he had made in the country, and he had probably felt bound to bring the subject before the House in the broad terms to which he had thus pledged himself. Lord John Russell made some further ironical remarks upon the speeches of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gibson, and in conclusion declared that, though the Government did not propose to go back to the estimates of 1835, they would be ready to make reductions when practicable; but they would not, for the sake of popularity, or from any other motive, pretend to make reductions which would prevent them from maintaining the honour, dignity, and safety of the country. The House divided, when there appeared |