• THE BUDGET.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:) regret to see that the Spectator, usually sound in matters of public economy, supports Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in his imitation of Mr. Goschen's weak-kneed policy of reducing the new Sinking Fund. But I do not wish to argue this point. I wish to set Sir Stafford Northcote right with your readers. You say, "When in 1874 .Sir Stafford North- cote established the fixed Debt charge, he only provided that about £5,000,000 a year should go to reduction of capital." These words do not give a correct, or at any rate a complete, impression of what Sir Stafford Northcote did. He did not devote 25,000,000 a year or any fixed sum to the reduction of capital Debt. The essence of his scheme was to devote 228,060,000 a year permanently to the service of the Debt, so that as the Debt, and with the Debt, the interest, diminished, the whole surplus of the 228,000,000, over and above what was needed for interest, should go in reduction of capital. And he adhered to this view as late as 1880. It was Mr. Goschen who, in a period of prosperity, first reduced the 228,000,000 to 225,000,000, and it is again the Unionist or Conservative Govern- mentwho are reducing it to 223,000,000. Sir Stafford Northcote, who in 1874, when the national income was only £75,000,000, thought that an annual payment of 228,000,000 was a reason- able sum to be permanently set aside as a contribution for the purpose of national assurance, would have been much astonished if he had been told that in piping times of peace and prosperity such as he had never known, when the national income had mounted to 2110,000,000, a Tory Government would decide that £23,000,000 was as much as the country could spare for the same important purpose. I should expect him to say to his party, as Sir Robert Peel said to the Whigs in 1840: "Oh, you miserable financiers I "— I am, Sir, &c.,
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