The budget has just been produced, and the country has heard the
lamentable exposure which the prime minister of the United Kingdom has
been forced to submit to parliament. Such is the state of our
financial affairs and future prospects, under the operation of the
free-trade mania: and it is matter of congratulation that the
mischievous and anti-national doctrines of the Manchester school
should have been refuted at so early a period of their practice, and
that the results of democratic rule are already made apparent even to
the dullest understanding. Since warning has failed--or rather, let us
say, since deep and deliberate treachery has combined with ambition
and selfishness to alter the system through which Britain obtained and
maintained its greatness, it is well that the hard but wholesome
admonitions of experience should be felt. Better, surely, now than
hereafter; before we have become familiarised to the annual tale of a
declining revenue, and before we have lost heart and courage to meet
the danger with a front of defiance!
The balance-sheet of last year exhibits the deplorable fact, that
there is an excess of expenditure over income to the amount of very
nearly THREE MILLIONS. For such a result our readers must have been
perfectly prepared. We have pointed out, over and over again, the
disastrous effects which were certain to follow upon the adoption of
the new theories; the depreciation of property, and the depression of
industry, inevitable as the consequence of such measures: and the
defalcation of the revenue is the best proof of the soundness and
accuracy of our views. Not that such defalcation is to be taken in any
degree as the measure of our loss. It is a mere trivial fraction of
the injury sustained in consequence of misguided legislation; a little
proof, but a sure one, that we have entered upon the path which we
must retread, unless we are to move on deliberately towards ruin.
Three millions is of itself an inconsiderable sum to be provided for
by the British nation, if the exigency were only temporary, and the
resources of the country augmenting. But three millions may be a
serious matter, if the demand is to be annual and increasing, and if,
withal, our means are dwindling and notoriously on the wane.
We write at so late a period of the month, that our remarks must
necessarily be contracted. Before these sheets can issue from the
press, the debate will have commenced in earnest, and the proposed
financial measures be thoroughly discussed in parliament. We have no
wish at present to fall back upon the earlier question, or to resume
consideration of the causes which have led to this extraordinary
deficiency. We are content to take Lord John Russell's figures and
apology as we find them. His estimates may very possibly be within the
mark, and we believe he has been cautious in framing them. Warned by
the experience of last year, he has not ventured to calculate upon any
increase in the cardinal items of the customs and excise, thereby
tacitly renouncing his faith in the realisation of the Cobdenite
prophecies; and the result of the whole is, that the yearly revenue of
the country, even including the present income-tax, will be, short of
the expenditure by more than three millions. It may be right to
subjoin Lord John Russell's own calculations.