The interest on that is L100,000,000
per annum, which alone, to say nothing of the principal sum, is three
or four times as much as the whole amount of your annual export trade
from that time to this. Therefore, if war has provided you with a
trade, it has been at an enormous cost; but I think it is by no means
doubtful that your trade would have been no less in amount and no less
profitable had peace and justice been inscribed on your flag instead
of conquest and the love of military renown. But even in this year,
1858--we have got a long way into the century--we find that within the
last seven years our public debt has greatly increased. Whatever be
the increase of our population, of our machinery, of our industry, of
our wealth, still our national debt goes on increasing. Although we
have not a foot more territory to conserve, or an enemy in the world
who dreams of attacking us, we find that our annual military
expenses during the last twenty years have risen from L12,000,000 to
L22,000,000.
Some people think that it is a good thing to pay a great revenue to
the State. Even so eminent a man as Lord John Russell is not without
a delusion of this sort. Lord John Russell, as you have heard,
while speaking of me in flattering and friendly terms, says he is
unfortunately obliged to differ from me frequently; therefore, I
suppose, there is no particular harm in my saying that I am sometimes
obliged to differ from him. Some time ago he was a great star in the
northern hemisphere, shining, not with unaccustomed, but with his
usual brilliancy at Liverpool.
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