Sir W. Harcourt read out in the debate a passage
from a. letter written by the Prince Consort on April 18th, 1854, exactly applicable to the present situation. The Prince wrote :—" The party conflict in the ilAllSfit of Commons will be upon finance. Gladstone wants to pay for the war out of the current revenue, so long as he does not require more than 210,000,000 above the ordinary expenditure, and to increase taxes for the purpose. The Opposition are for borrowing—that is, increasing the Debt—and do not wish to impose in the meantime any further burden on themselves. The former course is manly,. statesmanlike, and honest; the latter is convenient, cowardly,. and perhaps popular. Nous yarrow." The Tories were de- lighted when Mr. Martin's second volume, which is, to a great extent, a party pamphlet against Russia, appeared, but they do not like this extract from the third volume. It is most indecorous,. they say, to bring the Prince Consort's name into political de- bate. So it is, unless he happens to have been momently on their side. Then it is only "a just appeal to the authority of an impartial Prince."
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