deficiency in the produce of the Miscellaneous estimates, and hoped he would have the power of affording the further explanation of which he had spoken. He feared, however, that, as the only documents on the subject were the accounts of the receipt and expenditure, and as those documents were incapable of alteration, the right hon. gentleman would find his taskbone of considerable difficulty. To mix up the consideration of the Miscellaneous estimates with the other topics, tended to create confusion. He did not mean to throw any imputation on the right hon. gentleman, but merely to say, that inthis estimates of last year he was too sanguine. If, however, the expense of the year was founded on this erroneous estimate, it was too much to say that they were warranted in continuing the expense, after the exaggerated estimate of the income had been discovered. He would confine his remarks to the ordinary revenue and expenditure; to the amount received from taxation; and to the amount paid for the maintenance of our establishments, and for the interest of the debt. If the House would do him the favour to attend to him, he would endeavour to explain the matter. In 1825, the revenue was 52,000,000l.; in 1826, it was 49,600,000l.; being a diminution of 2,400,000l. Out of this revenue the act of parliament required that a nett surplus of 5,000,0007. should be applied as a sinking fund. Instead, however, of a surplus of 5,000,000l., the right hon. gentleman himself admitted, that he had only a surplus of 1,000,0007. It followed, then, that there was a deficiency in the last year of 4,000,000l. The expenditure of the country had increased as follows:-In 1825, the army, navy, ordnance, &c. had been 17,212,000l.; in 1826, they had been 19,344,000Z.; being an increase of 2,132,000l. Combining the deficiency of revenue with the increase of expenditure, it was easy to understand why the surplus should not exceed a million. The question for the House to consider was, whether we were in a condition to go on in the same manner next year? The right hon. gentleman said, that we were; he (Mr. Hume) said that we were not.. Why? With that surplus million we had pretended to reduce five millions and a half of debt. But how? In the old way. By borrowing four millions and a half, and adding to that sum, the million of surplus, we made it appear on paper, that five millions and a half of debt had been redeemed. He must protest against such a delusion. He would show that the surplus million was already absorbed by the expenses which had been incurred; leaving out of the question all considerations of loans or sinking funds. He would take it for granted, that the revenue of the present would not exceed the revenue of the last year. In the first place, there were life annuities to the amount of 580,000l. a year, which, strange to say, were never brought to the public account, but were always paid out of the sinking fund. Then there was the sum of 200,000l. increase in the interest of the outstanding debt; occasioned by raising, on the first of January, the rate of interest on Exchequer-bills from three half-pence to two-pence; and lastly, there was nearly the sum of 400,000l. to supply the deficiency arising from reducing the five per cents. These three sums would make it necessary to pay 1,160,000l. more in 1827, than in the last year. The consequence was, that, supposing the surplus of 1827 to be equal to that of the last year, there would, nevertheless, be a bona fide deficiency of above 140,0007. We had incurred a debt of 3,000,000l. in the management of the dead weight of only 13,000,000l.-So much for attempting to bolster up the sinking fund. We had been proceeding in this unnecessary accumulation of debt from the period of sir Robert Walpole to the present time. If, under the name of a sinking fund, ministers had at their disposal a surplus revenue of 5,000,000l., they would sooner or later find means of expending that surplus, and applying it to other purposes than the reduction of debt. Ministers had yet to receive the remaining part of this thirteen million of dead weight from the Bank. The last payment would be in April, 1828. Unless government pursued a different course with this fund, they must be adding to the debt, by funding at least five millions a year. If they went on as the act of parliament required, they would incur, by the end of the year, a debt of 3,600,000. This would be independent of the amount of the expedition to Portugal. These debts were incurred in what the ministers of the Crown called supporting the honour of the country. Thus they would run on until they got into a state of bankruptcy, which would eventually be the end of از his efforts to uphold the situation of the country with reference to foreign nations. What was the proud situation of this country, of which the right hon. gentleman boasted? It was merely the situation of an arbitrator, to settle all affairs except her own. The affairs of Portugal did not require so much of our management. It behoved ministers to look at home rather than go abroad, seeking glory at the cannon's mouth [a laugh]. It was well for persons to look at such matters at a dis their "honour." It was impossible for the chancellor of the Exchequer to make one million pay five millions, or to answer the public creditor, if he went on as he had hitherto done. France, Holland, America, and other countries were paying off their debts, or reducing taxation, either by husbanding their resources, or keeping their expenditure within their income. England, on the contrary, if parliament persisted in voting estimates upon the scale of the present year, must add to her already dreadfully heavy load of taxa-tance, and then fancy that they held a tion. He would put it to the House, commanding station. But what a picture whether they should not postpone voting it was that they had to turn over. He such immensely large estimates, until they had often heard it remarked, that men did had a more complete view of the state of not like to look into their affairs when the finances. All he asked was, to let the they were encumbered; and he believed that House vote a sum upon account. If they those gentlemen who boasted of the high and did not pursue this course, they might commanding station of the country, were find themselves in the situation in which very averse to examine its real condition. they were four years ago; when, after He apprehended that they looked upon voting the estimates, the state of the its internal situation in no very favourable country obliged them to withhold the sup- point of view. Instead of vapouring and plies, and the chancellor of the Exche- throwing away money upon other counquer complained, saying, "this is very un- tries, they ought to see if they could keep fair; you have voted the estimates, and out of debt; and if they could relieve, not now you refuse to vote me money to pay only the poorer classes, but every interest, them." The House of Commons were then for all interests were pressing upon the obliged to call upon ministers to reduce House for relief. He should be happy to those very estimates which themselves had vote upon account what would allow the previously sanctioned. Let parliament have Ordnance department to go on for three a full statement of what the chancellor of months. That period would be amply the Exchequer had determined the expen- sufficient for ministers to put the House diture to be. Let the House be supplied in a state of information upon the finances with an account of what were the expenses of the country, upon the estimated reveincurred in Portugal, and how they were nue, and the total of the intended expenses. to be provided for, and then they would With this view he had prepared a resoluknow how to proceed. If there should tion, but whether the House would agree prove any deficiency in the Ways and with him or not, he was unable to tell. Means, it would then be in the power of In France, Holland, and other countries, the House to consider whether they could the ministers of the Crown laid before the not lessen the expenditure, instead of House what they intended to call for; going on to the end of the year, and find- and, if this was not approved of by the ing themselves several millions in debt. House, the estimate was sent back to the The various departments of government ministers, who again laid them before the had already made up their estimates, and legislature in an amended state. He it would not therefore be difficult for the asked the House of Commons to do no chancellor of the Exchequer to lay a gene- more, and he was convinced he was acting ral statement of them before the House. a very reasonable part. He would move, The delay of only another month would by way of amendment, "That this House afford the House the opportunity of ascer- does not consider it expedient to vote the taining the real condition of the country. Ordnance or any other Estimates until the He would confess that he felt unplea- Ministers of the Crown shall lay before santly at the manner in which the chan- the House an Estimate of the total excellor of the Exchequer talked of sup- pected Expenditure of the country for the porting the dignity and honour of the current year, as well as the Ways and Crown, and at the confidence with which Means by which it is proposed to meet he spoke of the House supporting him in that Expenditure." The unsettled situation of all the leading interests of the country-of the commercial, the manufacturing, and the shipping interests-placed the House in a very awkward situation as to any investigation into the state of the revenue. Notwithstanding the melancholy views which had that evening been taken of the state of the revenue, he thought the return upon the whole to be satisfactory. Considering the extent of distress which had pervaded all classes of society last year, to a degree that was quite unprecedented, it was surprising that upon a revenue of 57,000,0007. there had only been a defalcation of 1,000,000. He confessed he had expected that the defalcation would have been much larger, and he was glad to find that it did not exceed the amount which he had stated. There was no occasion for the right hon. gentleman opposite to justify himself on account of the degree in which the revenue actually collected had fallen short of the sum which he had anticipated that it would produce. The very fact of his estimate having exceeded by so small a sum the amount of revenue actually collected during the distressed condition of the country, was a proof that it would have fallen within the mark had the country been in its ordinary situation. It Mr. Baring said, that if in ordinary times there had been such a defalcation in the revenue as appeared during the present year, he should have undoubtedly been of opinion, that it would be necessary for the House either to agree to the amendment of the hon. member for Aberdeen, or else to go into the committee and vote the estimates with the strictest investigation into them item by item. Judging from the general conduct of the House, he deemed himself justified in saying, that it was too inattentive to the condition of the national finances. No state that had any pretensions to freedom displayed such inattention as we did to the comparative amount of our expenditure and our means. The French minister was obliged to make a minute statement of the resources of his nation before he ventured to detail to the Chambers his plan for raising the supplies of the year; and the minister of the king of the Netherlands had absolutely had his budget thrown back upon his hands, because he had not accompanied it with a sufficient explanation of the national finances. As a general principle, he would say, that it was the duty of the House not to repose a blind confidence in ministers, but to look narrowly into the estimates which they presented to it. He recollected that in 1816, the House, after vot-would be a juggle, an outrage upon common ing the estimates, found that they were greater than the situation of the country justified. It addressed the Crown in consequence, and said that the estimates were not satisfactory. Amended estimates were accordingly returned to it, in which considerable reductions were made, and those estimates were subsequently approved. Now, if the estimates of the present year had been presented to the House in circumstances similar to those of 1816, he should have said that the House would not perform its duty without adopting a similar course to that which it then pursued. Considering, however, the political demonstration which the government had recently felt itself called upon to make in Portugal, and the support which the House had given to the government on being informed of it, he was afraid that any hesitation in voting the supplies would be productive of bad effect, not only in a financial, but also in a political point of view; and he should therefore prefer going into the estimates at present, to postponing the discussion of them till the period proposed by the hon. member for Aberdeen. sense, for any man to come down to that House and pretend to predict with the skill of a conjuror, the amount of any. future year's income: and it would be unbecoming the high character of the right hon. gentleman to pretend to any such powers of prescience. He must, however, remark, that the estimate of expenditure for the last year, presented by the right hon. gentleman, was not so ably constructed as his estimate of the revenue to meet it. There was a surplus of two or three millions of expenditure over the estimates, which he had not yet seen sufficiently accounted for. The expense of fitting out the armament for Portugal could not have come into the present accounts: if it had, he was glad of it, and surprised to find that it was not larger in amount. He then proceeded to observe, that if the expenses of the different departments so far exceeded the sums at which they were estimated, it was a proof that they were out of the controlling hands of the government; and that the government was, as it had once been described, a government P having resolved itself into a Committee of of departments all pulling at the Treasury, which exercised no control over them. If this was the case, it would be the bounden duty of the House to interfere, and apply Sir H. Hardinge said, that in presenta remedy to the evil, before it obtained ing the Ordnance Estimates to the comgreater ascendancy. Honourable gentle-mittee, it would not be necessary for him men often said, postpone the Estimates to detain them with many observations, till after the Budget; but it was difficult inasmuch as the estimates were considerto make up the Budget at so early a ably lower than they had been last year. period. He thought the present mode The reductions which had been made, had of proceeding the most safe and conve- not been made without great difficulty: nient. Before assigning what was to be and it would only be misleading the comspent, it had to The government of no hope that those reductions would be pernecessary to know what they mittee if he were to hold out to it any country could be strengthened by exhaust-manent. The Ordnance Estimates for ing its finances, or by stretching its exer- the present year were only 970,8947.; last tions beyond its powers. A country year they were 1,007,671.; so that they could not be strengthened by an army were 36,7771. less this year than they costing 8,000,000l., if it could afford only were last. In presenting these estimates 6,000,000l. It was in vain for ministers last year, he had mentioned to the comto say, that this or that island wanted mittee, that the master-general of the a garrison: the answer was, we cannot Ordnance intended, in the course of the afford to support the island. This, how- year, to propose an augmentation of seven ever, was not the state of this country, for hundred men to the artillery, by making it was able to keep all its colonies, pro- the companies to consist of eighty instead vided the finances were kept in a proper of seventy men each. The inconvenience, condition. He differed from much that however, which was felt from the want of had been said about the sinking fund. this additional force of artillery-men, must He congratulated the country upon its continue to be felt for some time longer, having such a fund. What would have and the proposed augmentation must be been the situation of the country, if, upon deferred till the next year. In the extraany falling off in the revenue, or excess ordinaries, the estimates amounted to of expenses, it had no excess of income, 223,5321.: last year they amounted to or, in other words, it had no sinking 228,6887.; so that there was a diminution fund? With an income and expenditure in that head of expense for the present of about 50,000,0007., if there were not year of 5,1367. In the unprovided head a surplus revenue, or sinking fund, of of account, which last year amounted to 5,000,0007., accidental necessities could 1,7137., and this year amounted to 4,6521., not be met. A stronger proof could not there was an increase of 2,9391., оссаhave occurred, than that afforded in the sioned by sending out the necessary suppresent year; for, with all the defalcation ply of brass and iron mortars for the preof income, there was still some excess servation of life from shipwreck, accordover expenditure. But for this excess, ing to captain Manby's apparatus, and by the debt must have been increased. He replacing certain engineer's stores, arms, should not object to going into the esti- and accoutrements, that had been lost by mates at present, as he did not imagine shipwreck in the West Indies. That head that any harm could arise from their con- of charge had been cut down as low as senting to do so. He hoped, however, possible by the committee, and it was that ministers would come down as soon the desire of the master-general to keep as possible with a statement of their finan- it in its present state of reduction. As to cial plans for the year; and he was quite Ireland, the estimates for this year were certain that the House would assist them 126,3827.: last year they were 130,5497.; in maintaining those establishments which so that there was a diminution of 4,1677. were necessary to support the honour and in the estimates of this year. The expendignity of the country. diture for Ireland had, for the three or four last years, been nearly the same. There was, however, this year, an additional sum taken on account of the Irish The amendment was then negatived without a division. WORDNANCE ESTIMATES.] The House survey, which he would briefly explain to the committee. The sum taken last year | sive repairs in the old one. As to the to promote this object, was 27,6907.; this estimate for military stores for Great Briyear it would be 30,0007. The additional tain, Ireland, and the colonies, it was sum was required by a new company that 135,2057. for the present year; last year had been recently added to the two com- it was 164,4167.; so that this year it was panies of sappers and miners already in 29,2117. less than it was last. That rethat company. The experiment of em- duction had arisen in the following way: ploying common soldiers upon a survey of the House had come to a determination to this nature had been most successful, and allow each soldier in barracks an iron bedthe system of taking men, who a few stead, instead of hutting four of them, as months ago could scarcely read or write, was formerly the case, in one wooden to employ them in measuring roads, and crib. The change had been productive of marking out the line of streams, was work- the most beneficial effects, on both the ing in a manner that was calculated to health and the morals of our soldiery, and confer benefit on the public, and credit on had saved a vast consumption of life in the parties who had suggested it. The those who were stationed in warm latisurvey was proceeding with the utmost tudes. This year a less sum would be rapidity. The officer engaged in super- taken for these bedsteads than formerly; intending it hoped that it would be per- and hence the diminution which he had formed within the time specified; and he pointed out to the committee. The last was happy to say, that when it was com- part of the estimate to which he wished pleted, it would be a splendid specimen of to call their attention, was the supplementopographical accuracy. The maps would tary estimate for the military works in the be published as fast as possible, and would colonies. The grant proposed this year be sold at a price not much exceeding the was 217,000l., and was greater than it price of ordinary maps. The charge of was last year. He had last year explained barracks for Great Britain was this year to the committee, that though this was an 1115,249/.; last year it was 147,0871.; so additional item in the Ordnance Estithat there was a diminution in this charge mates, it was only a transfer to the Ordsince the last year of 31,8387. He would nance from the army extraordinaries and beg the attention of the committee whilst the colonial department. Though the he stated how this diminution had arisen. master-general was most anxious to dimiLast year the House had voted 25,000l. nish the expenditure under this head, for the king's-mews barracks. A like sum there were certain military works which it was to have been asked for this year; was requisite, at any expense, to put but as the adjoining buildings could not upon a proper foundation. The heaviest be removed in time for the erection of charge was for the new works in the citanew ones during the ensuing year, the del of Quebec: 12,000l. had been taken call for this would be deferred till the for them annually for some years back. next. Next year the barrack estimate This year it was proposed to take 25,000l., would be increased in the same proportion and for this reason: In autumn, before as it was now diminished. The charge the winter set in, it was necessary to erect for barracks in Ireland was this year a solid work of masonry over the works 117,0777.; last year it was 124,6361.; so that were left incomplete, to protect them that there was a diminution in the esti- from the severity of the weather; and in mate of the present year of 7,5591. He spring it was necessary to displace that could not hold out any hope that there solid work of masonry, before the works would be any diminution in this part of commenced in the preceding year could the estimates, for many of the barracks in be continued. A great loss of time and Ireland at this moment required to be expense was thus incurred in building up made wind and water tight. There was and pulling down that which was ultia charge of 10,000l. in the barrack esti- mately of no use to the works erected. mate for Ireland this year, for the purpose It was therefore determined, that whatof erecting a new recruiting dépôt in ever work should hereafter be erected in Dublin. The old dépôt was so inadequate Canada, should be erected, if possible, to the purposes for which it was intended, in one season, as it was clear that the and in such a state of progressive dilapi- sooner the work was executed, the less dation, that it was deemed wiser to erect was the expense. It was on that account a new building, than to make the exten- that he proposed to take 30,000, this |