Mr. Smith, Member for Westminster, and Secretary of the Treasury,
also spoke, chiefly upon the affairs of his department. He eulogised Sir Stafford Northcote's plan for the gradual reduc- tion of the Debt, by assuming it always to cost £28,000,000, as a
plan which had convinced everybody except Mr. Gladstone ; main- tained that if the 283,000,000 owing by local authorities could be raised as the Metropolitan Board raises funds, the money might be obtained at 31 per cent., to the saving of 2400,000 a year ; and stated that the Exchequer had received in seven months more than the 2700,000 of surplus calculated for the year. His audience must not, however, expect a very large surplus, for the external trade of the country was steadily falling off, and there was stag- nation in cotton and iron. In Germany, in Austria, in Russia, in the United States, and in Canada, there never was such stagna- tion. He complained that there were really three Oppositions, with three sets of leaders, and the variety of their opinions made the passing of any measure difficult, "and sometimes quite wore one out." As Mr. Smith has, in virtue of his office, to sit in the Commons every day throughout the debates, he is almost as well qualified as the Speaker to testify to the dreariness of Tory government.
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