in the hands of government. But, the first law of every land, the first duty of those who administer the government, is, to secure the existence of the state. This law of self-preservation supersedes every other law; and, therefore, if a tax upon the funds has this sanction, it stands in need of no other. The tax is, in that case, no breach of national faith; because, to constitute such breach, the nation must want the will to futfil its engagements, and, it never can be said to want the will, if it has already gone as far as it can go without producing its own destruction as a state. Many other arguments suggest themselves in support of this position; but, if the case of necessity exists, what I have said already, Sir, sufficiently justifies the tax, and, if the necessity does not exist, all that can possibly be urged by the most ingenious reasoner, will fall far short of producing conviction. With you, therefore, Sir, it rests to show, that this dire necessity does exist; and, while you are about it, you may also show us whence it has arisen, and who has been the cause of it. Some persons affect to regard the five per cent. to be deducted from the dividends, as a tax upon income, and not a tax upon the funds. This distinction is, I imagine, too puerile to deceive any one for the space of five minutes. Every tax that you can name is ultimately a tax upon income; because it is from income that all taxes are paid. But, this tax upon the funds is levied immediately upon the commodity itself, and the Bank, which is now become a formidable rival of the Custom House and the Excise Office, will continue so as long as the name of stock exists within its walls, which, if we are to be preserved, will, I think, be about four or five years.

The loan, which you have made, does, I must confess, surprize me. I did not think, that there were to be found any persons, possessed of considerable property, so totally void of reason, as to suppose, that the government, in your hands, would ever be able to make good its engagements of any sort; and, I did say, that those who should 'make you another loan, would deserve to die in a work-house, a fate, which, if ap pearances are not fallacious, may probably befal many of the present holders of omnium, which, in the space of four days has fallen to a discount of 4 per centum. You boasted of the terms of this loan, Sir, and 'expressed your confident expectation, that they would turn out advantageous to the "contractors, because the House must be "sorry, when honourable and public-spirited meu, who come forward to assist the na

❝tion, suffer any loss from their zeal to pro"mote its service!" Your candour, Sir, is almost proverbial, and, therefore, I wonder, that you should not have informed these honourable and public-spirited men, that they were bidding for the loan under very false impressions; I wonder that you had not told them, that the messenger who came on Sunday, instead of bringing pacific news from the Grand Mediator, brought an account of the subjugation of his Majesty's German dominions. You knew, that the biddings for the loan were made under the former persuasion; to what, then, are we to ascribe your hope that the contractors would derive benefit from it? Think not, however, that I pity the loan-jobbers. If your cha racter of them and their motives be truly drawn, they stand in need of no consolation on the contrary, such public-spirited men, who come forward "to assist the na"tion," must feel gratified at having had so fair an opportunity of "promoting its ser"vice;" and, give me leave to think, Sir, that it must have wounded the feelings of these honourable and disinterested Jews to talk about their "suffering from any loss" that might arise from their zealous endeavours. To be serious, Sir, what would you say, if the stock, which is to form the paytuent of this loan, should be at a discount of 20 per centum? What would you say, if the loan should never be paid in to the Exchequer ? I do not positively assert, that either of these will be the case; but, if you continue minister, it is right that the country should be prepared of some such mishap: the whole of the paper fabrick begins to shake in your unsteady hands: there wants nothing but a sudden gust to shiver it to atoms.- -Let the widows, the orphans, the aged, the ine firm, the helpless stockholders of every description, take care: let them beware in time.

The Sinking Fund is, it seems, to be kept up in all its glory, and no addition whatever is to be made to the Public Debt, during the war, be its duration ever so protracted! How is this to be, Sir? You estimate (much below what will be found necessary) the annual supplies for the war at £26,000,000. All this, say you, is to come out of the taxes raised during the year, except about £6,000,000, which is to be obtained by a loan annually made to that amount; but, as the debt annually created by these loans, will be no greater in amount than the part of the Public Debt bought up annually by the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, the loans will make no addition to the debt! It is, I think, impossible that you should not perceive the fallacy of this state

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Public Debt bought up by the Commissioners? What, Sir, becomes of the stock so bought up? Why, it is carried to the account of the nation; it becomes the property of the nation; the nation annually receives the dividends on it, but it first raises the money to pay those dividends. And what becomes of the dividends, after the nation has thus received them from itself? Why, they are disposed of in the buying up of more stock, in order that the nation may have an increase of dividends, which, like the former, are to be paid by itself to itself; and thus the delusive wirligig goes on, but without ever lessening the Public Debt in the amount of one single penny. If, indeed, the stock bought up by the Commissioners were destroyed; if, when so bought up, it instantly ceased to exist, as nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the people imagine it does, then your statement would be fair; but, while it is in existence, and while the people have regularly to pay taxes to discharge the dividends on it, where is the difference whether the said stock be called the property of individuals or the property of the nation? Where is the difference, as to the £6,000,000, to be annually borrowed, whether the interest of it be paid to individuals or to the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund? So that it must be paid by the people, where is the difference to them whether it be paid on the right hand or on the left?Another question brings your statement to the test. You say, there will be no increase to the debt during the war, because stock, equal in amount to that which is created by the annual loan of £6,000,000, will be annually bought up by the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund. Now, then, Sir, if this be really so, why not take the produce of the Sinking Fund, during the war, and appropriate it to the public use, instead of a loan to the same amount? Would not this be much more simple and satisfactory than the roundabout operation of first making a loan of £6,000,000, with all the Jewish cant of biddings and bonuses and premiums and discounts, and, after having borrowed the money, paying it to the Commissioners, in the shape of an annual grant of £1,200,000, dividends on stock purchased up, and an annual one per centum on capitals created since 1793? If your Sinking Fund yields you £6,000,000, annually, why not take this £6,000,000 for public use, instead of first borrowing a like sum, and then paying that like sum off with the £6,000,000, produced by the Sinking Fund? Oh, no! that would alarm peo"ple; that would shake public credit."

to continue the operation of the Sinking Fund we must go on paying interest on all the stock bought up, and to be bought up, by the Commissioners; if, therefore, this continuation be absolutely necessary to the preservation of public credit, that credit must be destroyed, unless we continue to pay, as we now do, interest on all the stock that ever was created. When and how, then, is the debt to experience that diminution, with which, Sir, you thought proper to amuse the tame and stupid crowd, who were listening to you from the galleries? No, no, Sir; it is not in this Sinking Fund; it is not in this system of paying taxes in order to purchase stock for ourselves, and then to raise other taxes in order to pay the interest of that stock to ourselves; it is not in this shifting from one pocket to the other; it is not in a set of legerdemain tricks worthy of Bartholomew Fair; it is not here that we are to look for relief, but it is in your tax upon the Funds; or, in other words, in that admirable sponge, which you are now about to apply to one twentieth part of the debt. This, as Sir Walter Reighleigh said when he was approaching the City of St. Thomas, "this is the true mine, my lads, and he's a "fool that expects to find riches from any "other!" This, to use your own words applied to the Sinking Fund, "this is an ope "ration which carries with it the singular "advantage of executing its purposes for our "relief in proportion to our pressure;" for, the more expensive the war, the heavier, of course, will be the tax upon the Funds; and as all that part which becomes tax will no longer be debt, our relief will, as you truly observe, be expedited by our pressure! But, say the wiseacres of the City, there is none of the debt sponged off by this tax, which, however heavy it may become, will take only the interest, leaving the principal totally untouched; to which sapient observation you will, doubtless, reply, that, if they will but let you take the interest, they are perfectly welcome to do what they please with the principal. In short, Sir, that man must be afflicted with insanity or judicial blindness, who does not percieve, that to impose a direct tax of 5 per cent. upon the Funds is to wash away a twentieth part of the debt, which consists of those funds. You have, by calling this an income tax, a tax on property, &c. &c. succeeded in producing a confusion of ideas in the minds of the people, who, viewing the matter in the light in which you have placed it, seem to forget, that the tax on income and property is drawn from something which the party already has in his possession, whereas the

tax on the Funds is, in fact, a portion of a debt due to bim, but which he has not received, and of which debt the State is now about to pay bim nineteen shillings in the paund. And very good payment it is. It were to be wished, that every Bankrupt would pay 19s. in the pound; and, if you should not make that rate good upon the principal, you have shown the honesty of your intention, by making it good upon the interest.—The truth is, Sir, and, if you have common sense, it is a truth that you must perceive,

the National Debt has arrived at that point, beyond which it canno go, and, that terrific bugbear, a National Bankruptcy, the fear of seeing which has made this country submit to every species of wrong and of disgrace, is now actually making its appearance, unaccompanied with any of the dreadful effects, which base and interested men have endeavoured to persuade us it would inevitably produce. This measure of taxing the funds, alias paying nineteen shillings in the pound on the interest, this year, in order to pave the way for the total, and the only practicable, extinction of the public debt, has my unqualified applause; because, I am fully persuaded, that either that debt, or the independence of this nation, must be speedily destroyed. A small public debt is no harm to any country, nor, merely in a pecuniary point of view, is a large one, or even an enormous one, any harm; but, not so in its political effects: there a great public debt, is a tremendous evil. This distinction, which has, within the last ten years, been so fatally illustrated in England, has, however, been too little attended to. Mr. Pitt saw the navigation, the commerce, the manufactures, all increase as the debt increased; the land became, year by year, better cultivated, the houses, the roads, the carriages, the clothing and food of the people, all grew finer and better; but, he did not perceive, that the wealth of the country, while it was, in consequence of having assumed a moveable quality, extending the commercial means and multiplying the comforts and elegancies of life, was, at the same time, from the same cause, and in the same degree, producing political decay: he did not perceive, that when a vast portion of the public property had so changed its Dature as always to be instantly affected by political events, and always to bear, in value, an inverse proportion to the warlike exertions necessary to the honour and safety of the state; he does not seem to have perceived, that when the public debt had wrought this change in the interests and feelings of men, the state must of necessity fall, or the debt be annihilated. Such,

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however, is now the fact; and, the only objection I have to your statement, is, the miserable delusion, which you still attempt to keep up, and which, if your attempt succeed, can be attended with no possible good, while it may do infinite mischief. Proceed ing upon the maxim of Mr. Pitt, you repre sent our public debt as " the best ally of the "enemy;" and, the efore, say you, we will let the enemy sɛe- -What? Not that we are about to crush and annihilate this his " bast ally," but that we are going to raise the taxes within the year, in order to refrain from adding any more strength to this ally. But, Sir, I am happy to perceive, that, while you are talking of this foolish plan, while you really think you have adopted it, you are actually proceeding upon a wise one; that, while you think you are propping up the funds, you are, in truth, undermining their foundation.- Shall I be told, that I am here expressing a wish to see the credit of my country destroyed? Very like I may, but, Sir, far different are my wishes. I wish to see its true credit restored, by the annihilation of its false credit; I wish to see honourable sentiments succeed to selfishness and cowardice; and, if I am told of the miseries that this measure will bring upon those who are so unfortunate as to be stockholders, I deny that they will be a bundredth part so great as is generally imagin ed; because, as the extinction will not be effected all at once, people will sell out, in proportion as their apprehensions increase, and as those who have nothing but the funds to depend upon will be most timid, they will sell first: so that, at the "close of “the market,” a market which, I trust, will never again be opened, the loss will be found to be pretty fairly distributed. Be the miseries, however, arising from this source, what they may, they certainly are inevitable; for, if the debt be not, somehow or other, annihilated, the nation must be enslaved, and then the annihilation comes of course. Horrid, therefore, as the sound of National Bankruptcy is to the ears of the selfish and the foolish, it must be borne; and their only alternative is, bankruptcy and freedom, or bankruptcy and slavery. This is what you should have told them, Sir: this would have discouraged the enemy a thou sand times more than all your flattering prospects of commercial wealth, which wealth, were it a hundred-fold greater than it is, he well knows to be of no avail, as long as there exists a cause which impels so large a portion of the people to cry for peace on any terms.-I am, Sir, yours, &c. WM. COBBETT,

Duke Street, Westminster, June 15th 1893.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. HANOVER. The reader will, doubtless, recollect, that, last week, while the newspaper editors circulated intelligence of the French troops having been stopped on the confines of the electorate, in consequence of remonstrances on the part of Russia and Prussia, and while the same sort of delusive nonsense was found placarded up, à la bulletin, at the gossiping places of the small politicians, we were giving it as our opinion, that no such remonstrance had taken place, and that the French were, at that moment in possession of Hanover, which she would not only "plunder of its moveables, but would "confiscate all the public buildings, lands, "and other property, and would finally "sell the whole of it by auction." Sorry are we to perceive from GENERAL MORTIER'S dispatches (1), that we were so very near the truth. Hanover is, as we before observed, a rich prize. The estates of the House of Brunswick-Lunenberg are immense; the population of the electorate amounts to nearly a million of souls, and its net annual revenue is about 10,000,000 of rixdollars; but the part of the prize which the French most esteem, that which they are most in want of, and which they have seized on with the greatest joy and avidity, is, the horses, of which the electorate contains from thirty to forty thousand, fit for military service. The proclamation of General Mortier, which we inserted in our last (2), breathes a little of the revolutionary spirit, and the terms of the convention are worded so nearly like those made by the marauders of the Directory, that one would almost think Mortier had borrowed a specimen from the history of Buonaparte's Italian campaign. Upon reading these public papers, how sweet to the supporters of the ministers must be the recollection of their assertions, at the time of the peace, relative to the disposition of France. Lord Hawkesbury said the French Government had "publicly asked pardon of "God and man.” (3) ́All of them were full of praises of the reformation produced in France, and that very sapient personnage, Lord Castlereagh, stated, that so far were the people of that country from harbouring any wild schemes of subverting our government, that "they considered it

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as a model, and felt for us that deference and "respect which it was usual to entertain "under their ancient government."!!!! (4) General Edward Mortier does, however, talk most fluently of liberating the people of Hanover from a government which (1) See present sheet, p. 899. (2) See p. 807. (3) See Reg. Vol. II. p. 1249. (4) Ibid, p. 1331.

tramples under foot "all the principles of "the rights of man," and the Moniteur contains a very elaborate dissertation, the object of which is to prove, that the Hanoverians "ought no longer to submit to their ty"rants." This is the old style certainly, and, as Mr. Windham predicted at the time of the treaty, though Buonaparté is the enemy of Jacobins in France, he is the partizan of Jacobins out of France. There is no possibility of being angry, however, with the consul or his general: they are la bouring in their vocation; and, with respect to Russia and Prussia, what right have we to complain of their conduct, as to any part of Germany? What right have we to talk of the treaty of Luneville, we, who have declared, that this country had nothing at all to do with that treaty? No; we looked quietly on, and saw the empire of Germany new-parcelled out: we never even remonstrated on the subject: we had made peace, and that peace was not, we said, to be disturbed for the sake of the continent: our maxim was to "keep ourselves "to ourselves:" and, now, behold, now that, in spite of all our baseness, we are forced into war again; now we are calling to the powers of the continent to interfere in our behalf!

THE KING OF SARDINIA.-The charge against our ministers, relative to this unfortunate monarch, has been, we perceive, since our last, brought forward by the Moniteur with still more seriousness than before. What we quoted then was from certain notes on the English parliamentary debates; but we now refer to an answer to the declaration laid before parliament on the 18th of May, which answer is very full on every point of complaint, and particularly on that which relates to the King of Sardinia. This answer is a very important publication: we shall examine it part by part, hereafter. In the mean time, we are sorry that the ministers use no means to contradict the statement respecting the King of Sardinia, which, if true, must sink this country to the lowest degree of infamy. Mr. Pitt, in defending the peace, said, “ we ought to have restored the King "of Sardinia if we could, but that we "could not do it." The French say, that we might have done it, but that we would not, unless we could have done it without giving up Ceylon or Trinidada. And yet we have the conscience to look to the Continent for allies, and to Russia above all other powers, Russia who has always desired to see a provision made for the King of Sardinia!

GARBLED PAPERS In our preceding sheets, p. 821 and 886, we mentioned some of the principal circumstances relative to the

garbling of the public papers laid before Parliament on the 18th of May. The charge is now, we think, fully established, with this addition, that the note of Count Alexander Woronzow, dated Petersburgh, 12th November, 1802, was also left out in the papers presented to Parliament. This was a very important note, because on it turned the whole of the negotiation respecting Malta, as far as Russia was concerned. In short, the keeping back of this note, together with the suppression of part of Lord Whitworth's note of the 10th of May, and the keeping back of Talleyrand's note of the 12th of May, all of them relating to the guarantee of Russia, and, indeed, clearly showing, that that guarantee might have been obtained, and that the want of it was only a pretext; this suppression, this shameful garbling, fully proves the insincerity of the ministers as to the cause of their retaining Malta.- We beg our readers to recollect, too, that, in laying the Maltese papers before the Parliament, they have, as we observed in our last number, withheld the Temonstrance, which was the principal paper; though, by the negotiations at Amiens, an account of which Buonaparté has been so obliging as to publish, we perceive, that Lord Cornwallis produced this very paper as a proof of the impossibility of restoring the Island of Malta to the Knights! Why, then, was not this remonstrance communicated to Parliament amongst the other papers? It was called for. Mr. Canning moved for all these papers, and not for a part of them. But, the truth is, that the ministers give what they please and withhold what they please. They fear no responsibility. Mr. Pitt, after having done as much mischief as he could himself; after having broken down and subdued the parliament, put it under the insolent tyranny of his creatures, to whom he himself is now become an underling. WAR OF NECESSITY.-When we hear the ministry calling on the nation for sacrifices and exertions never before heard or

dreamt of, when we see a budget planning

the collection of 12 millions of new taxes to be raised annually, and when we have the prospect of seeing a military conscription, in virtue of which Englishmen will be placed in nearly the same situation that Frenchmen now are; when we hear, see, and anticipate, all this, we feel that it is all necessary, but we are, however, naturally led to ask the cause of it, and the wise Chancellor of the Exchequer gives us the answer.

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The pre* sent contest is for the existence of this

catalogue of the conquests of France."Very well: this is the cause of all our sacrifices and all our alarm. But, how comes this cause to fearful than before the conclusion of the last war? exist now in a degree so much more great and That war, with all our conquests in our hands, was going on without demanding any new and unheard-of sacrifices; that war, which was put an end to for the purpose of husbanding our resources without any tax upon the funds, without turning and providing for cur security, was going quietly on the Bank into an excise-office, and without a military conscription.-We have had 381 days of peace, during which we have been more than 381 times reminded of its blessings, and particularly of cellor of the Exchequer, the disinterested Richits œconomy. Seeing, then, that the sapient Chanmond Park minister, the clean-handed prosecutor of the Plymouth Tinker, has been all this while husbanding our resources, and seeing, that he bas constantly asserted that those resources have been upon the increase from the hour the peace was made; seeing all this, one is impelled to ask, why this war should require sacrifices beyond all pro portion greater than those required by the last? The answer is ready: the peace, the foolish, the dis. greatly changed our situation relative to that of graceful, and infamous peace of Amiens, has our enemy; has made us much weaker and him. much stronger.- "The peace," said Lord Castlereagh, has been inade on principles of our

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own security, and, therefore, I think that ministers were right in not regarding the encroach"ments of France, upon the Continent, between the "Preliminary and Definitive Treaty, as sufficient "cause to break off the negotiation."-Where is the security, then? In the military conscription? Is that have gained the hearts of the people. We have the security which it has brought us? We gained Mr. Tierney and Mr. Sheridan, the latter of whom will fight the French single-handed ?” Why, then, talk of a military conscription? Why afraid? You were not so afraid before the peace years, without any assistance from the singleof Amiens took place. We had been at war nine handed exertions of Mr. Sheridan, before that infamous peace was made, and the French never went to Hanover, never shut up the Elbe or the therefore, are owing, not to the war simply consi Weser during the whole time. These fatal steps, dered, but to the war as growing out of the Peace of Amiens. -And, shall not the makers of that peace be responsible for the measure? And shall they be allowed to conduct a new war, merely because they are likely to surpass all others in the baseness necessary to obtain another peace Such a nation, we seriously repeat it, such a nation must, and will, and ought to perish.

Our Correspondents shall be attended to next week. We regret that we could not insert the first excellent article entire.

LONDON,