We have a deficiency of nearly L.5,000,000 in the last two years: _is
there a prospect of reduced expenditure?_ Without entering into details,
but looking at your extended empire, at the demands which are made for
the protection of your commerce, and the general state of the world, and
calling to mind the intelligence which has lately reached us," [from
Affghanistan,] "can you anticipate for the year after the next, the
possibility, consistent with the honour and safety of this country, of
greatly reducing the public expenses? I am forced to say, I cannot
calculate on that.... Is the deficiency I have mentioned a casual
deficiency? Sir, it is not; it has existed for the last seven or eight
years. At the close of 1838, the deficiency was L.1,428,000; of 1839,
L.430,000; of 1840, L.1,457,000; of 1841, L.1,851,000. I estimate that
the deficiency of 1842 will be L.2,334,030; and that of 1843,
L.2,570,000; making an aggregate deficiency, in six years, of
L.10,072,000! ... With this proof that it is not with an occasional or
casual deficiency that we have to deal, will you, I ask, have recourse
to the miserable expedient of continued _loans_? It is impossible that I
could be a party to a proceeding which, I should think, might perhaps
have been justifiable at first, _before you knew exactly the nature of
your revenue and expenditure_; but with these facts before me, I should
think I were degrading the situation which I hold, if I could consent to
such a paltry expedient as this. I can hardly think that Parliament will
adopt a different view. I can hardly think that you, who inherit the
debt contracted by your predecessors--when, having a revenue, they
reduced the charges of the post-office, and inserted in the preamble of
the bill a declaration that the reduction of the revenue should be made
good by increased taxation--will now refuse to make it good. The effort
having been made, but the effort having failed, that pledge is still
unredeemed. _I advised you not to give that pledge_; but if you regard
the pledges of your predecessors, it is for you now to redeem them.... I