he had risen to develope his financial policy, we mean on the 11th of
March 1842:--"It is sometimes necessary, on the occasion of financial
statements of this kind, to maintain great reserve, and to speak with
great caution. A due regard for the public interest, may impose on a
Minister the duty of only partially disclosing matters of importance.
But I am hampered by no fetters of official duty. I mean to lay before
you the truth--the unexaggerated truth, but to conceal nothing. I do
this, because in great financial difficulties, the first step towards
improvement is to look those difficulties boldly in the face. This is
true of individuals--it is true also of nations. There can be no hope of
improvement or of recovery, _if you consent to conceal from yourselves
the real difficulties with which you have to contend_."[2] There was no
gainsaying the facts which, amidst an agitated and breathless silence,
he proceeded to detail with dreadful clearness and brevity; and out of
which the question instantly sprung into the minds of every one--_are we
not on the very verge of national insolvency_? He proceeded to
demonstrate that his predecessors had exhausted every device which their
financial ingenuity could suggest, down to their last supposed
master-stroke, the addition of 10 per cent to the assessed taxes--thus
adding very nearly the last straw which was to break the camel's
back--the last peculiarly cruel pressure on the lower orders.

[2] Hansard, vol. lxi. col. 423.

"Shall we persevere," he continued, "in the system on which we have been
acting for the last five years? Shall we, in time of peace, have
recourse to the miserable expedient of continued loans? Shall we try
issues of Exchequer bills? Shall we resort to Savings' banks?--in short,
to any of those expedients which, _call_ them by what name you please,
are neither more nor less than a permanent addition to the public debt?