Of course, this implies that Sir Stafford Northcote sacrifices altogether
his plan for reducing the National Debt by paying all the difference between £28,000,000 and the interest required every year towards that object. Or rather, it merges this sinking- fund in the still greater sinking fund now needed to cancel the deficiencies of the last few years. Even so, it will pay oft only £6,000,000 out of the £8,000,000, Sir Stafford trusting to the elasticity of the Revenue (which just now is 'far from elastic), or some windfall, for the remaining £2,000,000. Nor does he propose to pay a penny more towards the expenses of the Afghan war than the trivial loan he offered last year. Altogether, it is the humiliating collapse of a great and sound financial policy, this confession of Sir. Stafford's that England. must take five years in wiping out the debts of the last two or three years, and do nothing more in the meantime,—unless accidental balances enable her,—towards reducing the great Debt. What a comparison might be made between us and the United States, who, through the whole period of depression,. went on discharging a much more exceptional burden at a very rapid rate !
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