1830–60
To refrain during a period of prolonged peace from making any serious attempt to reduce the burden of a debt may be taken as a sign of weakness in the financial policy that is being pursued. Although the old system had met with general condemnation, doubts were expressed as to the wisdom of the new method of leaving the redemption of debt to the mercy of accidental surpluses. Baring lamented that “all hopes of a surplus to be applicable to the reduction of the public debt were to be derived from some sanguine expectations of a future though distant improvement of the Revenue.” He pointed out that he had not condemned Pitt’s sinking fund but only its abuses. Finally, he warned the Government that there were at least 1,374,000 ...
Get The National Debt now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
