General News.
Mr Gladstone's proposals for converting £7.107,572 of annuities which will expire in 1885 into a new series of terminable annuities, the Economist observes : —" If Mr Gladstone had to find amongst the general public people willing to accept his new annuities in lieu of their stock, there would be little prospect of his being able to carry out his scheme. But the Government is not dependent upon the public; It is itself the holder of a large amount of stock on account of the savings banks, and £20,000,000 of this Mr Gladstone now proposes to convert in'o annuities. The remaining £40,000.000 be asks to be allowed to take from the £62j000,000 or so of stock now standing in the name of the Chancery Paymaster; To this latter proposal the Lord Chancellor has assented, on condition that there shall be a margin of unconverted,securities left, sufficient to provide for the maximum amount of pay ments and transfers out of court, which according to experience can possibly be required. The gist of the plan is* that the National Debt Commissioners.and the Chancery Paymaster will have the book entry of £60,000.000 of stock now at > heir credit cancelled, and in place of it will receive an annual payment of £3,428,000. Of this amount £1,800,000 represents the annual interest oh the £60,000000, to which those on whose account the Govern ment securities are held will be entitled, while the remaining £1 628 000 invested at 3 per cent will in twenty five years amount to £60,000.000, and thus replace the stock now cancelled Under this scheme the actual reduction of debt will, of course, be no greater nor more rapid, than it would be if £2,000,000 of the amount left free ,by the expiring of .annuities in 1855 were, applied year by year until 1906 to the purchase of stock. The difference is simply in the form and not in the essence of the transaction. But the difference, nevertheless, is a very important one. All our experience has shown that it is almost impossible to induce Parliament to provide large yearly surpluses for. the repayment of debt. If there is at any time an excess of revenue over expenditure, it is immediately made the basis of demands for the remission of this or that tax, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer rarely finds himself able to withstand. When we have a surplus we spend it, and it is the recognition of this weakness that is at the root of such schemes as that which Mr Gladstone now puts forward. What he wishes to do is, so to speak, to hide from us the fact that we have a surplus. Under his scheme the £2,000,000 to be applied to the debt redemption will appear in the Budget, not as so much free revenue, but as a debt due to certain annuitants, the payment of which is not optional, but absolutely necessary. The money, therefore, will always be provided, and we shall thus be doing something during the next twenty -five years to reduce our indebtedness, whereas if it were left to Parliament each year to rote £2.000.000 for redemption purposes, the chances are very much against this amount being regularly forthcoming."
A boy, after bearing Wendel Philips lecture, asked his father, "Pa, why don't they give him an office, he seems to know all about everything." "He can make more lecturing," said the father absent mindedly, This was the youth's first leison in patriotism.
An unhappy man of our acquaintance says he's going to sea in the hope that he will be wrecked, and live all alone on au island for many years, and then come home and find his wife married to another man.
" I hope this hand is not counterfeit ?' J said a lover, as he was toying with his sweetheart's hand. •' The best way to find out is to ring it!" was the reply.
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Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3981, 1 October 1881, Page 4
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653General News. Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3981, 1 October 1881, Page 4
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