PUBLIC ACCOUNTS : THE COMING QUESTION. THE _Manchester Guardian has

published its promised article ; taking no notice of our last exposure, but putting forward, from the at-last-gotten Finance Accounts, a detailed exhibition of the " large diminution" of debt made by the Whig Government. When our attention was called to the first attack of this paper by some Manchester friends, it was also intimated that the journal was occasionally made use of for Downing Street statements in the important district of Manchester. It was this intimation which gave the matter any importance in odr eyes, since the chief cha- racteristic of the journalist's first attempt was a coarse display of zeal; the next was a makeshift at delay by a blunderer, who did not even know the names of the documents ; but at Iast there conies what may be accepted as an official light, for the facts have been got up, with office-looking parade, by a person possessing an acquaintance with the range of the subject, and familiar with all the purposes of delusion to which the Public Accounts may be turned. To show-up an impudent mystification, requires more space than to make it ; but the principle on which this one Is founded is, to go to two distinct accounts for:whatever in each may answer the purpose in hand, and to leave out of account any items that may tell against it.

This was the matter in dispute i The Spectator asserted that the Whigs had added to the Debt ; and, when challenged, this was the sum of the proof-

1830.

Interest on Funded. Debt £27,399,575 Interest on Exchequer Bills 793,031 28,192,606 DEnucT Life Annuities dropped between 1830 and 1839 469,018 What the interest would have been by 1839 had the Debt not been meddled with £27,723,588 1839.

Interest on Funded Debt £28,588,961 Interest on Exchequer Bills 856,761 ,

DEDUCT

Interest on Emancipation Loan 29,445,722 672,134 28,773,588 Real increase of interest through Whig meddling, with- out counting the Negro Loan £1,050,000

This account is "deliberately contradicted," and another is put forth, which men are challenged to disprove if they " can." In the new account, the Debt is considered under two heads-1st, the capital, to which we shall come presently ; 2d, the interest, on

which an addition of 626,5971. is admitted. The Spectator's estimate of increased interest (including the Emancipation Loan) would be 1,722,134/.; being a difference of 1,095,537. We will track out the mystifications which give rise to the difference, under their four heads, and then leave the reader to decide the question. 1. No. too in the Finance Accounts of 1830, and its counterpart for every other year, is devoted to the Funded Debt. It exhibits the capitals of the different Stocks, the total interest due upon them, and the annual charge upon each class of Terminable Annuities : it emanates from the National Debt Office, and is signed by the Comptroller- General. These accounts we have always referred to, as being the simplest in form, and of the highest authority : these accounts are adopted by the official Mr. PORTER, when exhibiting the Debt, in his " Tables published by Authority," (for when we were charged with an " enormous misstatement " of more than 900,0001. by a reference to a wrong account, the right account was actually lying before the person making this charge, in the next page.) These accounts, too, are used by the Ministerial people for the capital of the Debt ; but when the annual interest is to be exhibited, this document is thrown over, and No. 79 (and its counterpart) taken up, which is dated from the Treasury, with the signature of the Secretary. One reason for this rather un- usual shift in accounting is, that the Treasury account contains matters that form no part of the interest of the Debt, and which extraneous charges give a Whig gain of 237,544/. ; though neither their nature nor amount can be detected from the tables published in the Whig journal.* 2. But this mixing up with interest matters which are not interest, is only one reason for quitting the account of the National Debt Office to take up that of the Treasury. There is a large discrepancy between the two—we need not say in whose favour. In 1830, the Treasury account of the interest was less than that of the National Debt Office • Here they are— Bank of England for interest and manages meet of the Stock created by Loan, ad- vanced to Government at various periods Bank of England for one year's management Expenses 01 the National Debt Oflice (in another account in 1839)

1830. 1839. Difference

£ £ iu 1839.

40,502 336,032 251.340 133,866 9,600

£707,442 £469,898 z237,544. by 66,3101: in 1839 this discrepancy had swollen to 383,786/. Whether these differences, originate in some recondite official practice, or whether they arise from Treasury trickery improved to a fourfold extent under the Reform Ministry, or whether the Whigs have taken to tamper with public accounts as well as with despatches, we do not know ; but here we have another Whig gain of 317,476/4 more.

3. The Whig text admits an increase of 63,7301. in the interest on Exchequer Bills ; but the item is coolly omitted in the tables.

4. The 469,0181. of Terminable (Lite) Annuities dropped since 1S30, is also excluded : but this is not a trick, as a matter of account, for the item is disputed. No " truthful controvertist," it is said, could have a " pretence " for referring to them. We have no doubt that officials of both parties would be exceedingly glad of any " pretence" to sink the question of dropped Annuities, which furnish them, as the case may he, with a juggling appearance of diminishing debt, or the power to add to it without attracting attention. But the question of the Prac- tice as opposed to the Principle of Terminable Debt is too large to in- troduce here.

We have gone through the particulars : let us sum the results. Difference between the Whig estimate and the Spectator's estimate £1,095,537 Thus accounted fbr-

1. Difference, in 1830 and 1839, between ex- traneous payments, forming no part of Debt 237,544

2. Difference between the accounts of the Na- tional Debt Office, which the Whigs cannot control, and of the Treasury, which they can 317,476

3. Admitted increase of interest on Exchequer Bills 63,730 4. Dropped Life Annuities 469,018 £1,087,768 Difference 7,769 But the Whigs include shillings and pence, and deduct interest on account of " donations and bequests,"--that is, money from patriots who die and leave a legacy

towards paying off the Debt ; which in 1839 amounted to £7,768

The means of deciding between our views and the Whig views, are now before the reader, with the amount in each disputed point. If it be right to shuffle from one account to another according to the purpose in band, then the Whigs adopt a true accounting principle. If salaries to clerks and sums paid to the Bank for agency are in- terest on debt, then the Whigs are partially right : so they are if the Treasury Secretaries are right and the Comptroller-General of the National Debt Office is wrong ; or if an admitted payment of upwards of 60,0001. is to be silently dropped in an account ; or if the decrease of charge on annuities by the operation of death is to be palmed off upon the world as a merit of Ministers. And if the whole of these things are right, then they are wholly right.

We come to the second division of the official exposition, which relates to the capital of the Funded Debt : on which, it is stated, and truly as regards the figures, that there has been an increase of only 9,050,688/. Had a gross statement of the nominal capital of the Debt been an element of the account, we should not have failed to consider it. But it is merely an element of deception. Thus— There is no capital returned upon the Terminable Annuities; in fact, none exists. An increase of 1,197,893/. on the annual charge of this class of Debt the Whigs admit to have taken place since 1830; and this increase is left unnoticed in the official returns of the capital, the Stocks it was converted from being cancelled. By many the principle of this operation may not be apprehended: let us exemplify it. Suppose the reader has 1,0001. Three per Cents., yielding him 301. a year for ever : he has no relations ; he wishes to raise the largest life income he can : he barters his perpetual annuity, for an annuity (say) of 60/. during his life. When the bargain is concluded, his 1,0001. Stock would be cancelled ; it would stand no longer in the books, ex- cept as a life-charge. But who, save a 'Whig at his wit's end, would put forward this change in the nature of the Debt as an extinction of the Debt? Take a larger, and a very improbable, but a conceivable ease : suppose the public feeling during the next ten years should run -entirely upon short annuities, and our finances should be so flourishing as to enable us to pay the increased charge on the conversion of the entire Debt ; in 1851 there would be no return of capital at all : financiers of the new Whig school would tell us the Ministry bad extinguished the whole Debt ; whilst the nation, instead of some twenty-nine millions, might be paying sixty millions a year for it. We do not deny that the capital of the Debt might be made an element of consideration, but It would require calculating powers of a high order, much experience in actuary business, and access to the original documents in each trans- action. No one engaged in this controversy could undertake the cal- culation; but we think the following would be its form— £9,000,000. Admitted increase of capital : the nature of the Stock to be spe- cified by comparison with the Stocks of 1830. Add the Stock cancelled to raise the £1,197,893 admitted increase on the Terminable Annuities; allowing for the diminished value on each transaction between the present time and the period of conversion. Allow for the value in Perpetual Annuities of the £469,000 of dropped Life Annuities, not when first granted, but as it was in 1830.

Ditto other Annuities which we have not the means of stating.

}Interest fur 1830 (National Debt Office Return)

£27,399,575

Dim, (Treasury Return) £28,040,707

DEDUCT

Extraneous payments to Bank, &c. as above

707,442

27,333,265

Difference between Treasury and National Debt Office in 1830 £66,310

Interest for 1839 (National Debt Office Return)

28;6$6.961

Ditto (Treasury Return) 28,675,073

DEDUCT

Extraneous payments to Bank, &c 469,898

28,205,175

Difference between Treasury and National .Petit Office in 1839 383,788 • • • •

Ealance„

£317,476

So much for the element of gross capital, which omits all considera- tion of at least one-seventh of the annual charge.

We come to the capital on Exchequer Bills. This is stated at 27,278,0001. in 1830, and 20,951,0001. in 1839 ; being a decrease of 6,326,000/. And we readily say that this statement is supported by the Finance Accounts, and that only one class of account is referred to : but 1,662,0001. of the Exchequer Bills of 1830 were issued to pay off dissentients in the Four per Cents., the capital on which has been re- moved from the Funded Debt : in 1839, nearly a million of Exchequer Bills, issued to the Irish tithe-owners, were funded ; and four millions were funded by SPRING RICE. Thus the reduction of' this debt was not made by paying it ; it was a mere change of form, at least as regards 5,000,0001. We were, however, wrong in rating SPRING RICE'S fund- ing as a " positive " addition to the capital of the Debt : it was a con- version. This oversight, however, produces no practical result : the interest on Exchequer Bills for 1840 will be less by a capital of 4,931,0001., the interest on the Funded Debt more by a capital of 5,414,000/.

The four years "excess of expenditure over income" the Whigs cannot deny. The year 1840, however, is quietly sunk, and a long unintelligible story told about " balances," which have "arranged" the " deficiency " every year, though it requires " too much both of time and space fully to explain the matter." An explanation may be gathered from a return just printed, on the motion of Mr. 11EanxEs,* (an indication of coming inquiry.)

Excess of expenditure over income in 1840 £1,593,970

Increase in the balancest £151,040

So that, upon this principle, the more we spend beyond our in- come, the richer we shall get, in " balances."

• Pattie Income and Expenditure (Balance-sheet)—Ordered by the Douse of Coln- mous to be printed, January 27th 1841; No. 4.

.1 Balance in the Exchequer on 5th January 1840 £3,707,425 Ditto 1841 3,858,465 Increase in 1841 £151,0.10