On Tuesday the House of Commons read the National Debt
Bill a second time, after a very careful exposition by Mr. Childers of the, mode in which he proposed to redeem £173,300,000 of Debt in twenty years. He reminded- the House that, notwithstanding the passing of this Bill, the taxpayer would, before 1887, get a remission of £1,100,000 a. year in con- sequence of the expiration in 1885 of the annuity of £800,000 a year raised to meet the preparations sanctioned by Parliament in connection with the Russo-Turkish war, and of the expiration of £500,000 a, year in 1887 on account of the Afghan war. These together would bring a relief of £1,300,000; only this had to be reduced by about £-200,000 a year increased charge for the local-loan sinking fund, leaving £1,100,000 to go to the relief of taxation within the next four years. Sir Stafford Northcote spoke hesitatingly against the Bill, chiefly on the ground of its• being too late to discuss the details. He also made some highly inaccurate comments on Mr. Gladstone's Budget speeches of 1853 and 1860, and on their supposed inconsistency with the policy of the Government as indicated in the present Bill; to which Mr.. Gladstone replied with great force and eloquence, correcting Sir Stafford Northcote's erroneous history, and showing that the Government are proving a better stepmother to Sir Stafford Northcote's plan of 1875 for redeeming Debt, than its own mother ever has been.
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