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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1185: FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Mr. Goulburn brought forward his financial statement in a committee of ways and means on the 27th of September. He first stated what was wanted, showing that the house was called on to provide for a deficiency of £2,467,432. This sum, he said, did not differ materially from the deficiency anticipated by his predecessor; and to meet it he proposed funding a portion of the unfunded debt. He had, indeed, already made proposals to the public, which, he said, had been completely successful; the subscription he had obtained would enable him to give the requisite relief. The sum subscribed exceeded £3,500,000; and the terms he had offered were not higher than those offered by Mr. Spring Rice in 1838. The bonus would be found to be about 18s. 10d. per cent. With respect to the requisite supply, immediate taxation was out of the question; and he should therefore propose a mode of supply, which as a permanent resource he should deprecate, by an issue of exchequer-bills or a sale of stock, at the option of government. He suggested this alternative method, in order that the market might not be presently flooded again with a quantity of exchequer-bills equal to that from which it had just been relieved. Mr. Goulburn concluded by moving a resolution in accordance with the plan which he had explained, for funding the recent subscriptions in three per cent, consols. This proposition met with considerable opposition from Mr. Baring and other members; but the resolutions necessary for carrying it out were, nevertheless, passed without a division.