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be observed by way of explanation that it keeps two principles in view. It seeks to lay down numerically definite rules for adjusting representation to population, which can be uniformly applied to Counties and Boroughs alike throughout the United Kingdom, and at the same time to leave sufficient room for other considerations connected with history and prescription and the character of the communities represented, which have always powerfully influenced our constitutional system. It is evident that within limits numerical inequalities are a necessary incident of any scheme of local representation in which these two principles are recognised.

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(B) Electoral Areas affected by Rules III., VI., and VIII.

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West Ham

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Wales, Boroughs

Cardiff district

Scotland, Counties-Lanark

Scotland, Boroughs

Glasgow (ex.)

Inland, Boroughs-
Belfast (ex.)

Total gain

Ireland, Counties (continued)

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(c) Electoral Areas affected by Rule IV.

SEATS LOST.

England, Boroughs-Bury St. Edmunds, Durham, Grantham, Penryn and Falmouth

Wales, Boroughs-Montgomery District
Scotland, Boroughs-Wick District ...

Ireland, Boroughs-Galway, Kilkenny, Newry

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Effect of the operation of the Rules upon the representation of Electoral Areas in the United Kingdom.

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NATIONAL CREDIT

AND

THE SINKING FUND.

HOW TO MAKE £500,000,000.

BY

FRANCIS W. HIRST.

PUBLISHED BY

THE LIBERAL PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT

(In connection with the National Liberal Federation
and the Liberal Central Association)

42, PARLIAMENT STREET, LONDON, S.W.

1905.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

PREFACE.

MANY members of the House of Commons must have been surprised, after the parade of virtue with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his last financial statement augmented the Sinking Fund by a million, to learn that he is going to borrow nine millions, to be spent upon "Works" (mainly forts and barracks) in the current financial year. The enormous national loss caused by excessive expenditure upon wars and armaments is immense. I estimate it at not less than 400 millions during the last ten years. On the top of this came the Sugar Convention, which seems to be costing us about eight millions a year. Third in the category of financial errors (which I do not attempt to exhaust) is this deplorable destruction of the Sinking Fund at the very time when, by every canon of sound finance, large annual reductions of the national debt should have been taking place. A Sinking Fund is the great engine for constructing or repairing the fabric of 'national credit; it is also our war chest. The engine is motionless for want of fuel, and the war chest is empty! Three Chancellors of the Exchequer in succession have neglected their duty and betrayed their trust, and the result has been a fall of 20 per cent. in the price of Consols and other leading securities. Happily there are signs that the City has begun to be alive to the cause of its depression. Trenchant articles in favour of a restoration of the Sinking Fund to its full vigour have appeared in The Economist, The Statist, and The Investor's Review. Mr. Edgar Speyer has recently addressed the Bankers'

Institute upon this and kindred topics; and many daily journals have called attention to the matter. It is in the hope that a brief scientific and historical examination of the losses due to this policy may attract still further attention and assist the advocates of sound finance in the House of Commons, in the Press, in the City and in Chambers of Commerce, that I have prepared this essay. The results are startling; but several gentlemen of great financial experience to whom I have submitted it concur in thinking that the

calculation here made of the benefits to be derived from the creation of a real and substantial Sinking Fund for the reduction of the national debt is neither improbable nor exaggerated. At any rate the proofs and the figures are set forth, and I confidently leave them to the reader.

If his interest extends to details, he will find in an appendix the legislation by which the Sinking Fund has been nullified, and some statistical information. The pamphlet, I should add, is founded on some articles lately contributed to The Speaker, which the Editor of that journal has kindly allowed me to use.

F. W. H.

June, 1905.

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