THE NATIONAL DEBT BILL AND THE GOVERNMENT.
THE Standard of Wednesday is sanguine of a successful resistance to Mr. Childers's Bill for diminishing the National Debt by re-creating for a considerable period the Long Annuities which will expire in 1885 ; and the Daily News of. Thursday, if not exactly sanguine of the same result, con- templates it apparently with mild satisfaction. And, indeed, it is certain that Mr. Peter Rylands—a Liberal who is now too apt to walk in crooked ways—has given notice of his intention to move an amendment that would be fatal to the proposal of the Government, that Lord George Hamilton will raise a similar class of objections from the point of view of the Opposition, and that Mr. Mitchell Henry will take a special objection to asking Ireland, in her present state of poverty, to contribute towards such an arrangement. The Standard says that Mr. Anderson, a Scotch Liberal who occasionally enjoys administering a snub to his party, is to swell the ranks of the deserters, though of this we know nothing except on the authority of the Standard, which may, perhaps, be con- fusing between Mr. Anderson and Mr. Rylands. But be this as it may, looking to the very discreditable defeat which Mr. Childers encountered the other day,—probably through some deficiency in the Whips,—in his proposal to substitute national for local collectors of the Revenue, we think it not so improbable as it may appear that the Standard is not speaking quite with- out book, when it anticipates some difficulty in passing this Bill. What the ground of apprehension may be we cannot tell, but this at least is clear,—that either the Whips have not done their work very efficiently lately, or else that there must be some malign influence at work defeating their efforts. The Whips are, per- haps, taken at present too much from the Whig section of the Liberal Party. We should like to see one of them taken from amongst the Radical Members of that party, who would be more likely to know what was brewing in relation to motions such as that of which Mr. Rylands has given notice in relation to the National Debt Bill. But a change of this kind cannot, of course, be made in a moment. However much we may wish that the Government should keep in mind its own apparent want of good information in relation to Radical defections from the Ministerial policy, the danger, if there be a danger, in relation to the National Debt Bill, must be dealt with at present by bringing public opinion to bear distinctly upon it. This, however, we will say, that it is simply impossible for the National Debt Bill to be " dropped " by the Government, as the Standard suggests. It is a proposal which is of the very essence of the Budget, and, indeed, the most important proposal in the Budget. To leave the initiation of the scheme proposed for another year,—i.e., till within a year of the actual expiration of the long annuities,— would be a very grave act of weakness indeed, of which we are quite sure that neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor the Prime Minister would take the responsibility. The defeat of the National Debt Bill would be the defeat of the Cabinet on the most important of its financial proposals, and in our view ought to be followed either by a resignation or by a dissolution. No policy announced by the Government this year has been received with more hearty approval than Mr. Childers's wise proposal to anticipate the falling-in of these long annuities, and to renew something like five millions of them for another considerable period, with a view to a very substantial reduction of the Debt. The country is, we believe, in thorough earnest on the subject, and will give very short shrift indeed to Mr. Rylands, or any other Liberal who attempts to thwart the Government on this head. As for Lord George Hamilton's opposition, we cannot as yet believe that it will receive the support of his leader. Sir Stafford Northcote is so deeply pledged to the policy of paying off Debt, that it would be a conspicuously shifty party- move in him to try to trip up the Government on a proposal of this kind. But whether Sir Stafford Northcote is shifty or straightforward in the matter, is nothing to the Liberal party. It is something to the Liberal party to see that its own Members shall go straight on a policy of this kind,—a policy of pure justice to our posterity, to whom we are handing down a great load of Debt of very dis- putable origin, while we are handing down to them, in some directions, as, for instance, coal, greatly diminishing resources, —one, moreover, proposed by the Premier himself, taken up warmly and with great ability by his successor, and accepted by the country at large with a chorus of approbation. If the Government should be defeated on such a measure as this, we hold that it would be simply impossible for it to accept such a defeat tamely. It would be equi- valent to a vote of want of confidence in its policy, and ought to involve the usual consequences of votes of want of confidence. Mr. Rylands, of course, must vote as he pleases. But we think we may assure Mr. Rylands that Burnley will be very little likely to accept him as its Liberal candidate again, if he contrives to inflict a defeat on the Government in a matter so important as this. The Liberal Whips should be warned of the very serious nature of their responsibilities, which have not lately been discharged with the usual efficiency and energy. Whether, as it is rumoured, this may be because there is disunion of any sort in the Cabinet itself, we, of course, have no means of knowing. But this we do know, that nothing would be resented more gravely by the Liberal party at large than the least evidence of disloyalty to the Government on a grave question of this kind, either in the Cabinet or outside it. In the country, the party was never
more united than it is now. The least trace of a Parlia- mentary cabal would bring down upon those who gave comfort or aid to that cabal a very swift and memorable retribution.
As regards the Irish side of the case, it may be true, as we said last week, that Mr. Mitchell Henry might perhaps succeed in showing that this is not a very happy moment for spending the taxes paid by the Irish people in paying off Debt incurred by the United Kingdom. But then it is no secret that the Government are not adopting a niggardly policy towards Ire- land, but are willing to sacrifice a very large sum for the pur- pose of such an assisted family emigration as the Western Irish have embraced with so much eagerness and gratitude. It is well known that the Government are prepared to advance to the Canadian Government a sum large enough to enable Canada to establish fifty thousand Irish comfortably on its virgin soil, without running any of the risks of hand-to-mouth emigration. That would, of course, be taking a good large sum out of the Imperial Treasury for Irish purposes, and would probably cancel, for the year at least, the Irish share of the cost of extinguishing Debt incurred in that year. And it is childish to ask the House of Commons to give up a great scheme for the reduction of Debt, for the sake of improvement loans to Ireland on which the Irish Members themselves are as yet in no way agreed, nor even likely to be agreed. Let advances to Ireland for the purpose of improve- ment of the soil, or for railways, or for any other development of the national resources, be considered on their merits, as the occasion may arise. We, at least, should certainly support the proposal to open up the West Coast of Ireland by one or two State-guaranteed railways, such as Mr. Tuke and his colleagues have more than once suggested. But these are small matters, which ought to be judged on their merits. The Irish Members are not agreed, and are by no means likely to be agreed, on any big scheme for devoting a large capital sum to public works in Ireland ; and all such schemes are so purely imaginary at present, that it is ludicrous to consider them as competing with the proposal for paying off the Debt of the Empire. That is a question of national credit and of justice to posterity which is hardly affected, except theoretically, by the arguments of Mr. Mitchell Henry, so. easy is it to balance the annual contribution which Ireland would pay to such a scheme by special contributions towards the relief of Irish distress, such as are already before the Govern- ment in the case of the Canada Emigration Scheme. The Irish Members cannot expect, and the more reasonable of them will not expect, that we should delay indefinitely the reduction of the Imperial Debt, in order to accumulate funds for vision- ary drainings of the Shannon region, or still more visionary reclamations of bog.
To return to the pinch of the question. Mr. Childers's National Debt Bill will come on soon,—next week, we believe—for con- sideration, and whether the Tories trim on the subject or not we hope to see the Liberals staunch, and the Whips up to their duty. If there be any failure in the matter, the irritation in the Liberal Party will be extreme, and will be well founded. A defeat of this Bill ought to involve the usual consequences of a defeat of the Government on a matter of first-class importance ; and a defeat of the Government in such a cause would be followed by an explosion in the country for which the handful of intriguing Liberals are very ill prepared.
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