house should adjourn over until Friday, in Consequence
of the Festivities attending the Visit of the French
Emperor and Empress.

On Friday, April 20, in a committee of supply the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER made his Financial
Statement, assigning as a reason for its postponement
until so advanced a period of the session, the embarrassments
occasioned by ministerial modifications, and
the hopes that had been entertained of some satisfactory
result from the Vienna negotiations. He stated the
past and estimated the future position of the national
exchequer. At the beginning of last year the existing
sources of revenue were expected to produce £53,349,000.
New taxes were afterwards imposed, with the estimated
effect of raising the aggregate revenue to £59,494,000.
The actual product had been £59,494,144, which,
together with the issues of exchequer bills and bonds,
had given a gross receipt of £66,621,000, leaving a
surplus on the year's expenditure of about one million.
For the current year the various heads of expenses were
computed at—For interest on the debt, £27,947,000;
army, £16,214,000; navy, £16,653,000; and ordnance,
£7,808,000. He proposed taking a vote on credit for
contingent surplus outlay on the military service to the
amount of three millions, and computed the charges
for civil service at six and a half millions. The
ordinary supply services of the year would thus
involve an expenditure of £50,175,000, which would be
extended by the interest on debt, the Sardinian loan,
and other extraordinaries, to a gross total of about eighty-
two millions. Adding to this estimate the sum of
£4,400,000, to cover any possible excess in the outlay for
the war, Sir G. C. Lewis arrived at the conclusion that
the whole sum for which he must provide during the
year was £86,339,000. He then adverted to the produce
of the revenues, whose amount he computed to reach
£63,339,000, thus derived:—From excise £17,070,000;
stamps (deducting £180,000 anticipated loss on
newspaper stamps), £6,815,000; land and assessed taxes,
£2,920,000; income tax, £13,505,000; post-office,
£1,150,000; increased postage of newspapers and paper
duty, £288,000; crown lands, £260,000; and miscellaneous,
£800,000. A deficit of twenty-three millions was
then left, for which the government were called upon
to find ways and means of providing. Alluding to the
objections that had been urged against the principle of a
national loan, and citing the authority of Mr. Hume on
that point, the chancellor of the exchequer declared
that it was not always possible, or if possible not
expedient, to raise the whole annual expenditure of the
country by taxes levied within the year. The encroachment
upon the savings of industry caused by exorbitant
taxation was more injurious under certain circumstances
than the abstraction of capital by a loan. The government
had accordingly resolved to supply some portion
of the deficiency in the revenue by borrowing money.
After recapitulating the incidents which had
accompanied the gradual increase of the national debt, and
stating that since the peace of 1815, and up to the 1st of
January last, the capital of the debt had been diminished
by sixty-four millions, viz., from 815 millions to 751
millions, the chancellor of the exchequer described the
various forms and processes in which successive loans
had been contracted, and the contrivances that had been
adopted with the view, as it was hoped, of providing for
a gradual diminution and ultimate extinction of the
liability incurred. Among these devices was the sinking
fund, which he characterised as a delusion, and the
system of terminable annuities, which presented many
abstract advantages, but was subject to some practical
inconveniences, and could not be employed to any great
extent owing to the unmarketable character of the
securities so created. Admitting that the government
would have preferred a loan on the present occasion in
that description of stock, he remarked that it had been
impracticable to raise all the money required upon any
reasonable terms by terminable annuities, and accordingly
the great bulk of the loan which had been that
day effected was contracted in a permanent Three per
cent. stock. It was, however, intended to insert a
provision in the bill sanctioning the transaction by which
the minister of the day would be held bound within a
year of the conclusion of peace to provide a sum of one
million per annum for the purpose of gradually
extinguishing the new debt now incurred. Sixteen
millions would be thus raised by borrowing; and in
addition the government propose to augment the
revenue from taxation by a sum of £5,300,000. The
increment was to be thus arranged:—On sugar, the duty
would be increased by 3s. per cwt. on the average,
which was computed to produce £1,200,000. On coffee,
the duty would be increased by 1d. per lb.—namely,
from 3d.to 4d., from which £150,000 was expected. On
tea, besides the postponement of reductions already
sanctioned, he proposed to again partially augment
the duty making it 1s. 9d. per lb., and producing
an addition of £750,000 to the revenue. The total
amount of increased income from the custom duties
would be £2,100,000. In stamps he proposed to make
no further alteration than by the withdrawal of the
exemption in favour of certain bankers' cheques, and
expected to obtain £200,000 per annum by the change.
With regard to spirits he should propose to assimilate
the duties paid on the Scotch and English products,
making the tariff for both 7s. 10d. per gallon, and to
raise the excise on Irish spirits from 4s. to 6s. per
gallon. From this source he anticipated one million
additional revenue, and the whole increased product from
the indirect taxes would be £3,300,000. The remaining
two millions it was intended to raise from the series of
direct taxation, selecting for augmentation the income
tax, and increasing the amount of that impost by one
per cent., or 2d. in the pound in all instances. In
addition to these receipts from loans and taxation he
proposed to ask leave to issue Exchequer bills to the
same amount as the surplus credit for military services
—namely, three millions—by which means the whole
probable expenditure of the year would be defrayed.
The chancellor of the exchequer concluded by describing
the terms on which the new loan had been
contracted, and contended that they bore a favourable
comparison with those presented in any previous
transaction of similar character.—The formal resolution
sanctioning the issue of the new loan, having been put
from the chair, Mr. LAING said it was plain that they
were now at the commencement of a series of loans, and
it behoved the house, therefore, to see that they were
effected on right principles. He considered that the
proposal to pay off this loan by £1,000,000 a year after
the war was over, was a mere delusion, and he strongly
urged the superior advantages of terminable annuities.
The difference between terminable and perpetual
securities, was, after all, only a question of price. He
considered the terms of the loan not so favourable as
they might have been from the abundance of money in
the market, partly caused by the sale of government
stock, and partly by borrowing in the three per cent
stock, which had sunk down the old stock to the extent
of from two to three per cent. He also regretted that
the chancellor of the exchequer had not appealed to
the public at large for the loan. With regard to the
new taxes, he hoped the house would make a stand
against increasing the duties on sugar, tea, and coffee,
especially as an increase of the income tax to ten per
cent. would have given the whole sum required.—Mr.
GLADSTONE reminded the committee that by affirming
the resolution then proposed they would pledge
themselves finally both to the principle and the details of the
new loan. He was not prepared to withhold his assent
to the transaction generally, but wished to have the
resolution amended so as to postpone any decision upon
the arrangements suggested for the ultimate repayment
of the debt. Proceeding to criticise some of the features
of the financial scheme just laid before the house, the
right hon. gentleman objected to the further enhancement
in the tariff of the income tax at this early period
of the war; and on the abstract question of loans,
admitted that exigencies often arose in which it would
prove highly injurious to attempt to raise an augmented
revenue by a sudden enhancement of taxation. He
regretted the presentation of the annual budget had not
been postponed for a short time longer, seeing that in a
few hours or days the issue of the conferences now
pending at Vienna must be known, and claimed on his
part full liberty as to the judgment he should pronounce
on the general conduct of the ministry, either with