Note 38 — JOHN BRIGHT. ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29, 1858.

Note 38, p. 182.—The facts do not justify this statement. At the time of the Peace of Paris, in September, 1815, the national debt of Great Britain was £900,436,845. In March of 1855 it had been diminished to £808,518,448, £91,918,397 having been paid off. The two years of the Crimean War increased the debt by £30,399,995. But since March, 1857, the decrease has been £82,541,924, leaving the debt March 31, 1883, £756,376,519, a diminution of £144,060,326 since 1815. By a law of 1875 provision was made for the gradual extinction of the debt by means of a sinking fund to be annually provided for in the budget. In 1883 a bill passed providing still further for a series of terminable annuities, by which, in the next twenty years, £173,000,000 will be paid.—Martin, “Statesman’s Year-Book, for 1884,” 230.