London, Tuesday, April 12, 1853 

The best thing perhaps that can be said in favor of the Coalition 
Ministry is that it represents impotency in power at a moment of 
transition, when not the reality, but only the appearance of 
government, is possible, with evanescent old parties and not yet 
consolidated new ones. 

The “administration of al] the talents,” what has it accomplished 
during its first quarter’s trial? Two readings of the Jewish 
Disabilities Bill and three of the Canada Clergy Reserves. Bill.“ 
The latter enables the Canadian Legislature to dispose of a certain 
portion of the proceeds of the land-sales hitherto reserved 
exclusively for the benefit of the favorite churches of England and 
Scotland. When first laid before the House by Lord John Russell, 
it consisted of three clauses, the third clause repealing the 
enactment by which the consolidated fund was charged to supply 
the deficiency, if in any year the Canada land-sales could not 
produce £9,285. This bill had been carried through a second 
reading, but on the House going into Committee” upon it (March 
18) Lord John suddenly moved the withdrawal of his own third 
clause. Now, if the Canadian Legislature were to secularize the 
Clergy Reserves, about £10,000 per annum would be taken out of 
the pockets of the British people for the maintenance of a sect 
thousands of miles away. The Radical Minister, Sir W. Molesworth 
who disclaims all ecclesiastical endowments, appeared himself to 
have become a convert to Lord John’s doctrine “that British 
Colonies were not to be freed from the incubus of the Established 
Church, except at the cost and risk of the British people at home.” 

Three Radical resolutions were proposed during the first 
quarter’s trial. Mr. Collier moved the abolition of the Ecclesiastical 

Courts, Mr. Williams the extension of the legacy and probate-duty 
to real property, and Mr. Hume the extinction of all “strictly 
protective” duties. The Ministry, of course, opposed all these 
“sweeping” reforms. But the Coalition Ministry ‘opposes them in 
quite a different manner from the Tories. The latter resolutely 
announced their decision to resist the “encroachments of Democ- 
racy.” The former actually do the same, but do it under the 
pretence of attending to reform measures more carefully. They 
live on reforms, as the others lived on abuses. Apparently eagerly 
engaged in -reforms they have contrived a perfect system of 
postponing them. One day it is “advisable to await the result of an 
impending inquiry.” Then “a Commission has just been appointed 
and nothing can be done till it has given its decisions.” Again “the 
object is just under the consideration of the Government,” who 
expect not to be interrupted in their lucubrations. Next, “the 
subject deserves the attention of the House—when a fitting 
opportunity shall occur.” “The proper season has not yet 
arrived.” “The time is not far distant when something must be 
done.” Particular measures must be postponed in order to 
readjust entire systems, or entire systems must be conserved in 
order to carry out particular measures. The “policy of abstention” 
proclaimed on the Eastern question is also the Ministerial policy at 
home. 

When Lord John Russell first* announced the programme of 
the Coalition Ministry, and when it was received amid general 
consternation, his adherents exclaimed, “We must have something 
to be enthusiastic at. Public education shall be the thing. Our 
Russell is breeding a wonderful Education scheme. You will hear 
of it.” 

Now we have heard of it. It was on the 4th of April that Russell 
gave a general description of his intended Educational Reform. Its 
principal features consist in enabling the municipal councils to levy 
a local rate for the assistance of existing schools in which the 
Church of England doctrines are required to be taught. As to the 
Universities, those pet-children of the State Church, those chief 
opponents to every reform, Lord John hopes “that the Univer- 
sities will reform themselves.”° The malversation of the charities 
destined for educational establishments is notorious. Their value 
may be guessed from the following: 

* February 10, 1853.— Ed. 
April 5, 1853.— Ed. 

“There are 24 of £2,000 a year and under £3,000, 10 of £3,000 and under 
£4,000, 4 of £4,000 and under £5,000, 2 of £5,000 and under £6,000, 3 of £8,000 
and under £9,000, and single ones of £10,000, £15,000, £20,000, £29,000, £30,000 
and £35,000 a year each.” 

It needs no great sagacity to conceive why the oligarchs living 
on the malversation of these funds are very cautious in dealing 
with them. Russell proposes: 

“Charities are to be examined into, those under £30 per annum in the County 
Courts, those above by the Master of the Rolls. But no suit in either of those Courts 

is to be instigated without the permission of a Committee of the Council appointed for the 
purpose.” 

The permission of a committee is necessary to institute a suit in 
the Imperial Courts to redress the plunder of the charities 
originally destined for the education of the people. A permission! 
But Russell, even with this reservation, feels not quite sure. He 
adds: 

“If the administration of a school is found to be corrupt, nobody but the Committee 
of Council shall be allowed to interfere.” 

This is a true Reform in the old English sense of the word. It 
neither creates anything new, nor abolishes anything old. It aims 
at conserving the old system, by giving it a more reasonable form 
and teaching it, so to say, new manners. This is the mystery of the 
“hereditary wisdom” of English oligarchical legislation. It simply 
consists in making abuses hereditary, by refreshing them, as it 
were, from time to time, by an infusion of new blood. 

If everybody must confess that the Jewish Disabilities Bill was a 
little attempt at establishing religious tolerance, the Canada 
Reserves Bill a little attempt at granting Colonial Self-Government, 
the Education Bill a little attempt at avoiding public education, 
Gladstone’s financial scheme is, undoubtedly, a mighty little attempt 
at dealing with that giant monster, the National Debt of Great 
Britain. 

On the 8th of April, before the promulgation of the budget, Mr. 
Gladstone laid before the House of Commons a statement of 
several resolutions dealing with the public debt, and, before this 
statement had been made, The Morning Chronicle had made a 
special announcement that resolutions of the utmost importance 
were about to be proposed, “heralded by rumors of great interest 
and magnitude.”* The funds rose on this rumor. There was an 

“ The Morning Chronicle, No. 26922, April 7, 1853 (cf. this volume, 

impression that Gladstone was going to pay off the National Debt; 
but on the 8th of April, the moment the Committee met for delib- 
eration on these resolutions, Mr. Gladstone suddenly altered them, 
and in such a manner as to divest them both of “magnitude 
and interest.” Now, let us ask, with Mr. Disraeli, “what was all 
this pother about?” * 

The ultimate aim of Mr. Gladstone’s propositions, as stated by 
himself, was to reduce the interest on the public stocks to the 
standard rate of 2'/; per cent. Now, in the years 1822-23-24-25, 
1830-31, 1844-45, reductions were made from 5 per cent. to 4'/> per 
cent., from 4'/. to 4 per cent., from 4 to 3'/) per cent., from 3'/, 
to 3 per cent. respectively. Why should there not be a reduc- 
tion from 3 per cent. to 2'/, per cent.? Mr. Gladstone’s proposals 
are as follows: 

Firstly. With respect to various stocks amounting to £9,500,000, 
and chiefly connected with the old South Sea bubble,”' to bring them 
under one single denomination, and to reduce them compulsorily 
from 3 to 2°/, per cent. This would give a permanent annual saving 
approaching to £25,000. The invention of a new common name for 
various stocks, and the saving of £25,000 on an annual expense of 
£30,000,000, is certainly not to be boasted of. 

Secondly. He proposes the issue of a new financial paper called 
Exchequer Bonds, not exceeding in amount £30,000,000, transfera- 
ble by simple delivery without costs of any kind, bearing interest at 
2°/, per cent. up to Sept. 1, 1864,and then 2'/, per cent. up to 
Sept. 1, 1894. Now this is merely the creation of a new financial 
instrument limited in its use by the wants of the monied and 
mercantile classes. But how can he keep £18,000,000 of Exche- 
quer Bills at 1'/) per cent. in circulation, with Exchequer Bonds at 
2'/2 per cent.? And is it not a loss to the country to pay 1 per cent. 
more upon Exchequer Bonds than upon Exchequer Bills? Be this 
as it may, this second proposition has at least nothing to do with 
the reduction of the public debt. 

Thirdly and lastly. We come to the chief object, the only 
important point of Gladstone’s resolutions, to the 3 per cent. 
consols and the 3 per cent. reduced, amounting together to a 
capital of nearly £500,000,000. Hic Rhodus, hic salta! As there 
exists a Parliamentary provision forbidding these stocks to be 

of Commons on April 8, 1853 (The Times, No. 21398, April 9, 1853).— Ed. 

reduced compulsorily, except on twelve months notice, Mr. Gladstone 
chooses the system of voluntary commutation, offering various 
alternatives to the [option] holders of the 3 per cent. stocks for 
exchanging them at option with other stocks to be created under 
his resolutions. They are to have the option of exchanging every 
£100 of the 3 per cent. stock in one of the following ways. 

1. They may exchange every £100 of 3 per cent. stock for an 
Exchequer Bond of the like amount, bearing interest at the rate of 
Dy, per cent. until 1864, and then at the rate of 9! 1, per cent. until 
1894. If the whole of the £30,000,000 Exchequer Bonds at 2'/, 
per cent. should thus replace £30,000,000 of 3 per cent. there 
would be a saving in the first ten years of £75,000, and after the 
first ten years ot £150,000—together £225,000; but Government 
would be bound to repay the whole of the £30,000,000. In any 
case this is not a proposition to deal largely with the public debt. 

2. The second proposal is, that the holders of stock shall obtain 
for every £100 in 3 per cent. £82 10s. in new stock at 3'/y per 
cent., which shall be paid at the rate of 3'/. per cent. until the 5th 
January, 1894. The result of this would be to give a present 
income to the persons accepting the 3'/) per cent. stock of £2 17s. 
9d., instead of £3. Here then is a reduction of 2s. 3d. annually in 
every £100. If the £500,000,000 were all converted upon this 
proposal, the result would be that instead of paying as at present 
£15,000,000 a-year, the nation would only pay £14,437,500, and 
this would be a gain of £562,500 a-year. But for this small saving 
of £562,500 Parliament would tie up its hands for half a century 
and guaranty a higher interest than 2 4-5 per cent. at a time of 
transition and of utter uncertainty as to the future standard rate of 
interest. On the other hand, one thing at least would be gained for 
Mr. Gladstone. At the expiration of 40 years, he would not be 
troubled with a 3 per cent. stock, being defended, as now, by a twelve 
months’ notice. He would only have to deal with the 3'/, per cent. 
stock redeemable at par by Parliament. Gladstone proposes not to fix 
any limit on his 3'/) per cent. stock. 

3. The third proposal is that the holders of every £100 3 per 
cent. should receive £110 in a new stock of 2!/o per cent. until 
1894. When Mr. Gladstone introduced his plan in the House of 
Commons on the 8th April, he had not limited the amount (the 
2'/2 per cents.) to be issued. But Mr. Disraeli having pointed out 
that, contrasting this proposal with the two other modes proposed, 
every man in his senses would choose the conversion of £100 into 
rae per cents., and that by the conversion of the whole 
£500,000,000 3 per cents. into the new stock, the country would 

gain on one side £1,250,000 per annum, but be saddled on the 
other side with an addition to the capital of the public debt of 
£50,000,000, Mr. Gladstone on the following day altered this 
proposition and proposed to limit this new 2'/, stock to 
£30,000,000. By this alteration the whole of the third proposal 
loses its significance with respect to the public debt. The capital of 
that debt would be augmented only by £3,000,000. 

Here you have “one of the most important and gigantic 
financial proposals that has ever been brought forward.”* There 
exists perhaps in general no greater humbug than the so-called 
Finance. The most simple operations on the Budget and the 
Public Debt are clothed by the adepts of that occult science in an 
abstruse terminology, concealing the trivial maneuvers of creating 
various denominations of stocks—the commutation of old stocks 
into new ones, the diminishing the interest and raising the 
nominal capital, the raising the interest and reducing the capital, 
the installing of premiums, of bonus, priority-shares, the distinc- 
tions between redeemable and irredeemable annuities, the artificial 
graduation in the facility of transferring the various descriptions 
of paper—in a manner which quite bamboozles the public with 
these detestable stock-jobbing scholastics and frightful complexity 
of details, while the usurers obtain with every such new scheme an 
eagerly seized opportunity for developing their mischievous and 
predatory activity. On the other hand, the political economist finds 
in all this apparent intricacy of commutations, permutations and 
combinations, not so much a matter of financial policy as a simple 
question of arithmetic or of mere phraseology. 

Mr. Gladstone is certainly a master in this sort of financial 
alchymics, and his scheme cannot be better characterized, than in 
the words of Mr. Disraeli: 

“More complicated and ingenious machinery, to produce so slight a result, 
appeared to him never to have been devised by the subtlety and genius of the most 
skilful casuist. In St. Thomas Aquinas there was a chapter that speculated upon 
the question of how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. It was one 
of the rarest productions of human genius; and he recognised in these resolutions 
something of that master mind.” 

You will remember that I stated that the end of Mr. Gladstone’s 
plan was the establishment of a “normal” 2'/. per cent. stock. 
Now, in order to achieve this end, he creates a very limited 21/5 

Benjamin Disraeli in his House of Commons speech on April 8, 1853.— Ed. 

per cent. stock and an unlimited 3'/p per cent. stock. In order to 
create his small 2'/; per cent. stock, he reduces the interest by */, 
per cent., and gives on the other hand a bonus of 10 per cent. for 
the purpose of accomplishing that reduction. In order to rid 
himself of the difficulty of the 3 per cent., being “defended” by a 
twelve-months notice, he prefers legislating for the 40 years next 
to come, and in conclusion he would, if successful, bereave two 
generations of all possible fortunate chances in their financial 
affairs. 

The position of the Coalition Ministry in the House, is clearly 
shown by the statistics of votes. On the question of Maynooth” in 
a large house, it had but the narrow majority of 30. On the Jewish 
Disabilities Bill (not yet carried through. the third reading), in a 
house of 439 members, its majority amounted not even to 30 
votes. In the Canada Reserves Bill, when Russell withdrew his own 
third clause, the Ministers were saved by the Tories from their 
own supporters. Their majority was almost entirely supplied from 
the benches of the Conservatives. 

I shall not dwell on the internal dissensions of the Cabinet, 
which appeared in the debates on the Canada Bill, in the hot 
controversy of the ministerial papers with regard to the Income- 
Tax, and above all, in their foreign policy. There is not one single 
question to which the Coalition Ministry might not answer, as did 
Gaysa, the Magyar king, who, after having been converted to 
Christianity, continued, notwithstanding, to observe the rites of his 
ancient superstition. When questioned to which of the two faiths 
he really belonged, he replied: “I am rich enough to belong to two 
sorts of faith.” 

Written on April 12, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York 
Tribune, No. 3753, April 27, 1853; re-