But let it be conceded that the government and the Times are in the right on this point; that the importation of grain, coexisting with the absorption of capital in the railways, was more than so poor a nation as Great Britain could bear, and that the dreadful crisis which ensued was the consequence—we would beg to ask, who has made us so poor? We shall lay before our readers a few facts in regard to the resources of this miserably poor nation—this poverty-stricken people, who have eaten up their little all in the form of 10,000,000 quarters of grain and 176,000 live cattle, imported in the last nine months. We shall show what they were before the free trade and fettered currency system began; and having done so, we shall repeat the question,—"Who has made us so poor?"
This miserable poverty-stricken people, in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815—in the close of a bloody and costly war of twenty years' duration, during which they raised £585,000,000 by loans to government, and, on an average, £50,000,000 annually by taxes, from a population, including Ireland, not in those last years exceeding 18,000,000 of souls—made the following advances and contributions to government for the public service:—
| Debt contracted. | ||||||
| Population. | Raised by Taxes. | Funded. | Unfunded. | Total Debt contracted. | Total Payments into the Exchequer. | |
| 17,750,000 | 1813 | £68,748,363 | £52,118,722 | £55,478,938 | £107,597,660 | £176,346,023 |
| 17,900,000 | 1814 | 71,134,503 | 39,692,536 | 53,841,731 | 92,934,267 | 164,068,770 |
| 18,150,000 | 1815 | 72,210,512 | 50,964,366 | 46,968,138 | 97,932,501 | 170,143,016 |
| In 3 years, | £212,093,378 | £142,175,624 | £156,288,807 | £298,464,428 | £510,557,809 | |
If any one supposes these figures are inaccurate, or this statement exaggerated, we beg to say they are not our own. They are copied literatim from Porter's Parliamentary Tables, vol. i. p. 1; and we beg to refer to that gentleman at the Board of Trade, to whom, on account of his well-known accuracy, the Chancellor refers for all his statistical facts, for an explanation of these, we admit, astounding ones.
Was the capital of the country exhausted by these enormous contributions of A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY MILLIONS annually to the public service, in the twentieth year of the most costly war on record? So far from it, the great loan for 1814 of £39,000,000 was made at the rate of £4, 11s. 1d. PER CENT; that of 1813 at £5, 10s. on an average; that of 1815 at £5, 11s. per cent.[13] And it is evidently immaterial whether the immense amount of £100,000,000 debt, funded and unfunded together, was contracted in the form of direct loan to government, or of Exchequer bills issued from the Treasury, and forming the unfunded debt. Such bills required to be discounted before they were of any value; and their proceeds, as Mr Porter very properly states, were so much money paid into the public treasury. They were an exchange of the capital of the nation for Treasury bills, and were, therefore, just as much a draft on that capital as the exchange of the sums subscribed in loans for the inscription of certain sums in the 3 per cent. consols.
In the next place, this poor nation, which has now nearly eaten up its resources in a single season, in the year 1844 possessed, in the two islands, real or heritable property of the yearly value of £105,000,000 sterling,[14] corresponding to a capital, at thirty years' purchase, of £3,150,000,000; and at twenty-five years' purchase, to one of £2,625,000,000. These figures are ascertained in the most authentic manner; that of England by the Report of the Lords' Committee on the burdens of real property;[15] that of Ireland by the Poors' Rate returns; and that of Scotland from an estimate founded on the amount of income-tax paid, as no poors' rate as yet extends universally over the country.
Further, we have the authority of Lord Palmerston, in the debate in last session of Parliament on foreign loans, for the assertion that this poor nation has advanced £150,000,000 in loans to republics since 1824, or to monarchies surrounded with republican institutions; the greater part of which has been lost. Yet so far have these copious drafts been from exhausting, or even seriously trenching, on the capital of the nation, that it appears from the subjoined valuable table, furnished from returns allowed to be taken from the great bill-broking house of Overend and Gurney in London,[16] that during that whole period the interest of money, even in the years when the pressure was severest, never rose above 6 per cent., and immediately after fell to 3½ or 3 per cent., and in 1844 and 1845, it is well known, it was still lower, at some times as low as 2½ per cent.
Again, the income-tax returns for 1846, of this miserably poor nation, exhibit a revenue of £5,200,000 yearly drawn from this source, though the tax is only 7d. in the pound, or £2, 18s. 4d. per cent., and though the tax did not legally go below incomes of £150, and in practice generally excluded those under £200 a-year. The income-tax, in the last year of the war, produced £15,000,000 at 10 per cent., reaching all incomes above £60 a-year. Had the same standard been adopted in 1842, when it was reimposed by Sir R. Peel, it would have produced at least £18,000,000 yearly, which sum, increased by 33 per cent. from the enhanced value of money by the operation of the act of 1819, would correspond to about £24,000,000, according to the value of money in 1815. This proves that the wealth of the nation had more than kept pace with the increase of its population; for the numbers of the people in the two islands in 1815 were 18,000,000, and in 1845 about 28,000,000, or somewhat above 50 per cent. increase.
Lastly, this miserably poor nation, which has eaten up its resources in the shape of quarters of grain and fat bullocks in a single year, exported and imported in the three years 1812, 1814, and 1815, and 1843, 1844, and 1845, before free-trade began, respectively as follows:
| Exports. | Imports. | |
| Official value. | Official value. | |
| 1812, | £29,508,517 | £24,923,922 |
| 1813 | —Records destroyed by fire. | |
| 1814, | 34,207,253 | 32,622,711 |
| 1815, | 42,875,996 | 31,822,053 |
| 1843, | £117,877,278 | £70,093,353 |
| 1844, | 131,564,503 | 75,441,555 |
| 1845, | 132,444,503 | 85,281,958 |