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 tPl^BLICATlONS OF THE NATIONAL tJNION, No. XLtl.J 
 
 A FE^A^ FACTS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 BY A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL. 
 
 Till very recently, the Liberal Party boasted they would 
 fight the battle of the General Election on the question of 
 Foreign Policy, and no language was too strong to denounce 
 what they called the failure of the Treaty of Berlin, the failure 
 of the opposition offered to the ambition of Russia, and finally 
 the failure of the plan for improving our frontier in Central 
 Asia. They have at length discovered that the Treaty of Berlin, 
 far from being a failure, has proved eminently successful ; that 
 Kussia has been checkmated, and is beside herself with mortifi- 
 cation at having been checkmated; and that though we have 
 been obliged twice to enter Afghanistan, we have successfully 
 asserted our position as the one commanding Power in Asia. 
 The visit of Prince Bismark to Vienna, and the defensive alli- 
 ance concluded between Germany and Austria, have at length 
 opened the eyes of the blindest Liberals to the real facts of the 
 case. But it should be added that this situation, so fatal to 
 Russia, and so satisfactory to the interests of this country, was 
 deliberately contemplated and carefully prepared by the En- 
 glish Plenipotentiaries at the Congress.
 
 Mortified and embarrassed by the falsification of their facts 
 and prophecies in connection with the Foreign Policy of the 
 Government, the Liberal Party, in desperation, are now en- 
 deavouring to shift the issue they had themselves selected, and 
 are seeking to make the decision of the constituencies turn 
 upon the question of Finance. 
 
 The G-ovemment will be just as ready and just as well pleased 
 to encounter the Opposition upon questions of Finance as upon 
 questions of Foreign Policy ; and the more both these subjects 
 are discussed, the better, No doubt it is easier for uncandid 
 persons to juggle with figures than it is to mislead the con- 
 stituencies upon facts of Foreign Policy. But, in the one case 
 as in the other, there is no difficulty in exposing the inaccuracy 
 of their assertions. 
 
 The accusations of the Liberal Party against their successful 
 rivals is that Conservative Governments are more extravagant 
 than Liberal Governments. 
 
 There is an ambiguity in the word "extravagance," which 
 must be guarded against, if the question is to be considered 
 with an honest desire to get at the facts, independently of 
 Party feeling and Party interests. 
 
 " Extravagance " may mean spending more money, or it may 
 mean spending the same amount of money, or even a less 
 amount of money, unnecessarily and wastefully. It is not 
 enough to enquire how much a Government has spent, in order 
 to be able to say whether it is an extravagant Government, or 
 the reverse. We must ask what it has spent the money upon, 
 and what it has given us for the money it has spent. Moreover 
 when a Government boasts that it has been economical, it is 
 liot enough merely to look at a row of figures and see how 
 little it has spent. It is imperative also to enquire whether it 
 has spent as much as the efficiency of the public service, and 
 the safety and interests of the Empire, required that it should 
 spend. It may have been penny wise and pound foolish. It 
 may have spent where it ought to have saved, and saved where 
 it ought to have spent. 
 
 In treating the assertion that the Government of Lord 
 Beaconsfield has been more extravagant than the Government 
 of Mr. Gladstone, two observations have to be made. 
 
 1st. The Conservative Government has not spent so much 
 more than its predecessors as Liberals vaguely assert. 
 
 2nd. Though it has spent a little more, it has done so in the 
 performance of great national and imperial duties, which it 
 would have been cowardly, criminal, and in the end, costly and 
 extravagant to have neglected.
 
 .3 
 
 The motto of Conservative Finance is, " a stitch in time saves 
 nine." The moral of Liberal Finance is to be seen in the old 
 story beginning, "for want of a nail, the shoe was lost." The 
 Conservatives, sooner than that the honour and interests of the 
 country should suffer injury, are prepared to incur the risk of 
 acquiring unpopularity with the less patriotic portion of the 
 community, by an exj^enditure somewhat in excess of that of 
 their unpatriotically parsimonious predecessors. 
 
 It is only the simple truth to say that the smaller expendi- 
 ture of the Liberals, where it was smaller, was due to calcu- 
 lating and unprincipled parsimony. Their object was not to 
 save the pockets of the taxpayers, but their own seats ; not 
 to relieve the purse of the electors, so much as to retain the 
 reins of power. Doubtless they miscalculated ; and the British 
 elector turned out to be more patriotic than the politicians who 
 strove to divert him from his duty as an Englishman by a 
 trumpery bribe offered to him as a taxpayer. 
 
 Conservative Financiers respect themselves and their country- 
 men too much to resort to so ignominious a device. The first 
 thought of Conservative statesmen is how to protect the honour 
 of England and defend the interests of the British Empire, and 
 the first article of their creed is, that Englishmen are still 
 patriotic enough not only to be willing, but to be anxious to pay 
 whatever is necessary for the attainment of these great ends ; 
 and even if their countrymen were for a time to prefer low tax- 
 ation to a high standard of national honour, that would be no 
 reason why they should relinquish their own conception of 
 national duty. In that case they would make way for the advo- 
 cates of Retrenchment and Humiliation. 
 
 Liberal financiers and Liberal statesmen, on the other hand, 
 begin by assuming that Englishmen love money more than any- 
 thing else in the world ; and they go on to flatter themselves 
 that if they can only contrive by starving the public service at 
 home, and truckling to arrogant Powers abroad, to present to 
 the country a smaller Budget than their predecessors, they are 
 sure of being retained in office. 
 
 Thus, the Conservatives prefer to forfeit power, if necessary, 
 rather than spend less than the interests of the country require ; 
 whereas the Liberals prefer to spend less than the interests of 
 the country require, rather than forfeit power. 
 
 But to what extent is it true that the Conservatives spend 
 more than the Liberals ? It is only true in this sense, that a 
 Conservative Government on taking office, finds everything out 
 of repair in consequence of the unpatriotic and self-seeking 
 reductions of its predecessors, and has to spend an additional
 
 amount of money in order to put the Army, tlie Navy, and the 
 other Departments once more in an efficient condition, 
 
 When a Liberal Cabinet comes into office, the reverse takes 
 place. It finds everything in a perfect state of efficiency, and 
 then, in order to curry favour with the more unthinking portion 
 of the population, it sets to work to render the public service 
 inefficient again by an unscnipulous reduction of expenditure. 
 
 Which of the two systems is in the long run the most econo- 
 mical ? Surely it is the system which does not allow things to 
 get out of condition ? Everybody knows that it is much more 
 extravagant, and that it costs much more, to let a building get 
 out of order and then to put it into repair, than it is to keep 
 it in proper condition by opportune, steady, and ungrudging 
 annual outlay. 
 
 The accusation of extravagance brought against the Con- 
 servatives is a mere election cry, and the least honest and least 
 patriotic of all the cries employed by the Liberal Pai-ty at such 
 periods. It simply means that the Liberals, in their desperate 
 desire to oust their opponents, are prepared to enter upon a fresh 
 career of wasteful and ruinous economy, and to destroy the 
 influence and imperil the security of the Empire. Never forget 
 what was said, almost on his death-bed, by a great Liberal 
 Prime Minister. " By his Foreign policy," said Earl Kussell, 
 "Mr. Gladstone has tarnished the national honour, injured the 
 national interests, and lowererd the national prestige." That is 
 rather a high price to pay for "reduced expenditure," more 
 especially, when we consider that, in the long run, it turns out 
 out to mean increased expenditure. 
 
 NATIONAL UNION OF CONSERVATIVE & CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS, 
 ST. S:{'EPHENS CHAMBEKS, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1879.
 
 
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