Is there to be a loan, or is there not
?—that is the question which has perhaps been most anxiously mooted this week. Point was first given to the expectation by the assertion of the Times, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer must want money; that a supply would be necessary for sending out more men, ships, and munitions of war ; that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had now done his utmost to confine the expense to the income; with the indication that he would seek to raise the money on terminable annuities. The announcement bore a quasi-official semblance, which excited great interest throughout the country, and particu- larly in the City; where Consols bowed down in deference to the grand idea. Next day, however, the Times declared itself to be informed, "on unquestionable authority, that the belief we ex- pressed yesterday as to the state of the exchequer and the neces- sity of the loan, and the opinion we also avowed as to the scale of our earlier preparations having been unfortunately stinted by an. undue anxiety to keep expenditure within the limits of income, are both unfounded." The journal, however, intimated that "the nature and extent of the contradiction" were not capable of "clear apprehension "; and we are left to infer that the writer disbelieved it in its more wider and obvious sense. The Ministerial Globe subsequently alluded to the subject, with a reference to the gene- ral impression out of doors that the loan would be both a natural and a proper resource ; but with an intimation that no precise state- ment on the subject had been made or could be made. And the Morning Clironiele pointed out the fact, that the brief session before Christmas would afford no opportunity for developing so large a subject as the loan. "The legislative business brought forward will, in all probability, be strictly limited to the necessary mea- sures for rendering the Militia available ; and at all events there is not the slightest likelihood of any application being made to Parliament for money, or of any financial questions being raised
by the Ministry Any special provisions which may here- after be needed for the expenses of the war will be reserved to a fitter season."
It is quite evident that the few days before Christmas would afford no time for Mr. Gladstone to do more than astound the money-market and derange monetary and commercial business throughout the Christmas holidays, varying the festivities with uncongenial excitement. The policy of taking a loan, however, as we point out in a separate paper, depends upon data that are be- fore the public ; and it is not to be anticipated that Ministers will be so generally at variance with the entire current of public opin- ion, political as well as monetary, as to refuse any assistance in a form that may be most accordant with the interest and feeling of the country. A form that at first looks specific has been given to the reports on this subject, by the statement that an Anglo- French loan will be proposed. The term implies a loan, of course, to a large amount, on the joint guarantee of both Governments, for joint purposes. But in truth this report is as little specific as the other. It throws no light upon the pro- bable details; and the public, staying the appetite of its curiosity by such substantial facts as are within its own knowledge, will no doubt have to await the disclosures :of the official plans from the lips of Mr. Gladstone, not probably at a late period, but certainly not before Christmas. The single fact which is at present quite certain is, that no statement on the subject is authorized, and that the intentions of the Cabinet have not been disclosed.
