It is high time, indeed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer were retrenching his expenditure; for, weak as the Administration has been in other respects, the management of the finances has been peculiarly disastrous. Although the present Ministry took office with a surplus, which they owed to their predecessors, in the two succeeding years (1860–2) in which Mr Gladstone had the exclusive direction of the finances, his mismanagement accumulated a deficit of four millions sterling. Nor is this all. For in the same period Mr Gladstone anticipated the revenue of the country to the extent of £3,200,000,—namely, £2,000,000 anticipated upon the income-tax, and upwards of £1,200,000 upon the malt-credit. This enormous deficit—_seven and a half millions sterling_—was, moreover, accumulated during a period when the national Exchequer enjoyed windfalls such as very rarely come to the aid of a Minister of Finance. The falling-in of the terminable annuities has reduced the charges on the National Debt to the extent of £2,000,000; and there was also the unexpected repayment of a portion of the Spanish loan. Mr Gladstone, therefore, has enough to do with the surplus which he will obtain by the proposed reduction of the expenditure. He has first to restore the Exchequer balances to their proper amount, by repaying the £2,684,000 which he abstracted from them to meet his exigencies between March 1860 and March 1862. He has likewise to get rid of the addition to the National Debt which he created, to the extent of £461,000. And, finally, he has to cease his forestalments of the revenue. When he has done these things, where will be his surplus? Mr Gladstone, in former times, used to denounce the slightest forestalment of the yearly revenue as a flagrant “violation of political morality;” and there is no question that such a procedure can only be excused under exceptional circumstances and to a very small amount. The House of Commons, therefore, as watchful guardians of the public revenue, will surely call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to restore matters to their normal condition before he does anything else. The same must be done in regard to the Exchequer balances. And if it be not an equally pressing necessity to pay off the £461,000 of new debt, surely Mr Gladstone, who aspires to the reputation of a great Finance Minister, will be ashamed to leave unpaid off a portion of the national obligations which will hereafter be known as “Gladstone’s Debt.” Unfortunately, when we think of 1853–4, we must allow that this is not the only portion of the National Debt which may be thus designated.