ABSTRACT
To know, how far an unnecessary grant of the public money is, independently of its amount, mischievous, one must look to the quantity of influence which it creates or perpetuates, and by this test one may try the merit of the House of Commons as to the grants they have acceded to or refused. It was the boast of the Government, its partisans, and its dupes, that the money with which the Sinking Fund Commissioners purchased, came from the revenue of the country,—it was denied that they purchased with borrowed money. Millions after millions are, by means of the sinking fund, continually added to the National Debt,—tax after tax laid upon the people to pay the interest of those millions; and so long as the expenditure of the country exceeds its income, so long will this fund continue to add to both.
