This financial system of Mr Gladstone is, unfortunately, not a mere thing of the past. Its consequences weigh upon us now, and there is no sign of his abandoning it. It is a novel system—novel even to himself; but he adheres to it with an obstinacy which threatens to embarrass us in the future not less than in the past. A grave question must be at stake when the greatest financial authorities of the Liberal party come forward prominently to side with the Conservatives in opposing and denouncing the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They feel strongly that the recent hand-to-mouth system of Mr Gladstone will not do, and that in times of emergency it would entail grave disaster upon the national fortunes. “Great nations—such, for example, as England and France,” says Mr M’Culloch, “with colonies and dependencies in all parts of the world, and with jealous and powerful neighbours, must expect to be every now and then involved in difficulties; and on that account they should have a considerable surplus revenue—_i. e._, a considerable surplus after defraying the cost of their usual establishments,” And he adds—“Had the affair in regard to the Trent led, as it was not unlikely to do, to a war with the United States, it would have found us in an awkward situation—without any surplus revenue, with discredited customs and excise duties, and nothing to fall back upon but an increase of the Income-tax and loans.” We regret to say that the calamity from which we so narrowly escaped two years ago, cannot be regarded as unlikely of occurrence now; and there are also elements of strife sufficiently formidable on our own side of the Atlantic to engage the thoughts of our statesmen, and to invest with peculiar interest the at all times momentous subject of the national finances. When we hear so old a Liberal and so practised a political economist as Mr M’Culloch echoing Lord Castlereagh, and charging the country in the very words of the Tory statesman, with an “ignorant impatience of taxation,” we cannot but be confirmed in the views which we have repeatedly expressed in regard to the policy of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the country at large will do well to reconsider that policy and the principle upon which it is based.