LETTERS TO TIIE EDITOR.

THE GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE.

r TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your correspondent "A. J. B." is quite right in saying that Sir S.N orthcote rivals his chief in showing his contempt of the

reasoning powers of his followers, but the Chancellor does even more, when he assumes that they are ignorant of the information which must, as Members of Parliament, be upon their library tables. With regard to Sir S. Northcote's statement that "the Tory Government took less of the people and spent more for their benefit than its predecessors," there is a very satisfactory answer.

At the instance of Mr. Childers, a Return of public expendi- ture and charges on taxes was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on July 19th last, and the following instructive figures —taken, be it remembered, from a document published by the present Government—show the value of Sir S. Northcote's state- ment that "the Tory Government took less out of the people than the Liberals."

"The total charges in taxes," according to this Return, were :- 1869-70

•• •

£59,994,000 1870-71

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60,088,000 1871-72

60,970,000 1872-73

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•••

60,011,000 1873-74

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•••

64,484,000 1874-75

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•••

62,633,000 1875-76

63,952,000 1876-77

65,156,000 1877-78

68,738,000

As to "spending more for the benefit of the people," this same Return shows that the Army and Navy expenditure in 1872-3 was 124,010,000, and it increased year by year until in 1878 it stands at £26,586,000. Again, the "revenue not taxes," which is drawn indirectly from "the people," and paid by the people, was :- 1869-70

£8,714,000 1870-71 •••

9,303,000 1871-72

10,363,000 1872-73

10,545,000 1873-74

••• 11,826,000 1874-75 ...

11,071,000 1875-76 ...

11,508,000 1876-77 ...

11,981,000 1877-78 ...

12,555,000 So much for "sophistical rhetoric !"

As if this were not enough, Mr. Childers—who evidently courts the light—asked for another return in July, showing the National Debt from 1857-8 to 1877-8, and this is the result. The "total Debt created" was in these years :-

1870-71

£487,500 1871-72 1,830,300 1872-73 385,000 1873-74 1,815,000 1874-75 1,509,700 1875-76 6,120,252 1876-77 4,651,406 1877-78 7,973,891

I have given the figures fairly and accurately, according to the- official printed statements, and I have only omitted in the last column the year 1869-70, given in the others, because the return itself says that £7,000,000 of Stock was hl that year "created for reproductive expenditure, i.e., for the 'acquisition of the Tele- graphs.'" we now know that in addition to all this, "peace, with honour,' has added another sum of £4,300,000 to the National Debt. Sir S. Northcote's scheme for the repayment of the Debt justifies, by subsequent events, the comment of a wit, that it was a burlesque edition of an .old comedy, i e., "A New Way of Paying Old Debts."

It does not require any financial genius to see that were a Tory squire to adopt the Chancellor's plan in the management of a landed estate, the law of primogeniture would not be of much advantage to his eldest son. If the squire has an estate of 110,000 a year, heavily mortgaged, and he virtuously resolves to set aside .t1,000 a year in liquidation of the debt, and lives at the rate of £13,000 or £14,000, he furnishes an exact parallel to Sir S. Northcote's ingenious invention.

It reminds one of the Irishman who cut a piece from the bottom of the blanket and stitched it to the top, to make the whole longer, —only Sir S. Northcote cuts a piece off the piece.—I am, Sir, &a.,