The important thing in the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, that it gives us the result of Whig government and Free-trade finance during so long a period. Every successive quarter, during these twenty years, we have been told by the Liberal press that the finances were in the most flourishing condition; that any deficiency that appeared was more apparent than real; and at any rate, in the most unfavourable view, it was sufficiently explained by temporary causes, and afforded no ground whatever for despondency in the future. Every successive Session, the Ministers came down to Parliament with the most flourishing accounts of the state of the country and of the public finances, and demonstrated to the satisfaction of every reasonable man in the nation that both never were in more hopeful and prosperous circumstances. Even when a deficiency of one or two millions stared the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the face, which was not unfrequently the case, there was always some temporary or transient cause to which it was to be referred. The China tribute had ceased, or some reduction of duties had come into operation, or revolutions in Europe had diminished our exports to the adjoining states. The Irish potato-rot was a perfect godsend to the Liberal financiers. It constituted their stock in trade for the next three years. The ruin of L.15,000,000 worth of agricultural produce in Ireland, out of at least L.260,000,000 worth in the two islands, explained the whole distress of the country and the exchequer for the next three years; and, strange to say, the very men who paraded so ostentatiously the ruinous effects of this comparatively trifling deficiency in a single year, made a boast soon after of their having destroyed L.90,000,000 of agricultural remuneration by the importations they induced of foreign grain.