The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-04-30 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

PARLIAMENT has been occupied, in Committee
of Ways and Means, in discussing the details
of Mr. Goschen's first budget. Notwith-
standing that the Chancellor ef the Exche-
quer had himself led the public to beFeve
that they must expect nothing but a hum-
drum Budget this year, such is his high
reputation in the field of finance that a gcod
deal of anticipation was aroused as to the
way in which Mr. Goschen would manipu-
late the millions that make up the national
revenue. In the result, the expert in com-
mercial arithmetic who now has charge of
Britain's accounts certainly'unfolded a
surprise. His reign at the Exchequer has
been hut brief, and the ex-Chancellor gave
up office because, despite his undoubted
ability, he Considered himself utterly unable
to male his economic views coincide with the
requirements of the chiefs of the spending
departments. The outlook was not auspi-
cious for Mr. Goschen. Though he has been
regarded as the man :above all others—with
the single exception of the veteran ex-Pre-
mier—qualified to fill the post of Chancellor
of the Exchequer, and though much has
been expected of him whenever the chance
came to his turn to dispose of the income
and expenditure of the State he has served
already in many ways, he would have been
forgiven if, under all the circumstances, his
initial Budget had not soared beyond being
what he recently averred it would be, of a
-very commonplace character. It is certainly
not commonplace, however, but bears every-
where the impress of the hand of the bril-
liant financier. All sorts and conditions of
taxpayers had their criticism disarmed by
by concessions at the ()met concessions
which they had not been ledlto look for. The
great middle classes, who constitute the
back-bone of the Kingdom's stability, were
very much pleased to find that Mr. Goschen
proposed to relieve them of the payment of
one-eighth of the income-tax. The working-
elssses were conciliated with the remission
of a moiety of the tobacco duty a change
in the fiscal arrangements which will admit
of them obtaining a better quality of the
fragrant weed for their money. Then the
agriculturist and the landowner were con-
siderately treated by a grant in aid of local
taxation; and all this without creating any
new impost to make the reductions of doubt-
ful value, that is, if we except the compara-
tively trifling matter of placing a stamp
duty on debentures a method of money.
raising which will not entail hardship any-
where. Mr. Goschen found himself even
able, being in a magnanimous mood, to spend
a little money in a special way, to balance
matters, upon Ireland and so schemed a
grant towards arterial drainage in the sister
isle. This liberality bespoke popularity for
the Budget, the more so because sticklers
for the efficient equipment of the Services
were not wounded by any cutting down or
pinching of their resour 3es. How was it all
done? By resorting to the old expedient of
making an alteration in the rate of discharg-
ing the nation's indebtedness. Mr. Goschen
considered that it was not necessary to ad-
- - hero to a hard and fast pre-arranged method
- of paying off obligations, regardless of the
state of commercial prosperity or the amount
of the nation's expenditure on unavoidable
wants for the time being. He came to the
conclusion that he might justly lay his hand
upon the Sinking Fund, and that the great
public would not be hostile to his plan of
relieving financial pressure a little by being
content to tax it this year only sufficiently
to wipe off debt at the rate of five millions
per annum, applying the accruing surplus
in ameliorative directions. There are sturdy
fiscal reformers who object to this, and who
hold staunchly to the principle of applying
the Sinking Fund in its entirety to the re-
duction of the National Debt. They con-
sider that our country should set itself first
of an to be clear of an incubus of financial
responsibility, which entails the payment of
a heavy amount of interest, and so, in a
sense, is a source of perpetual embarrassment
to the Exchequer. On the other hand there
are many who argue that Government
should so steer its financial course that the
taxpayer be not unduly pressed, while the
nation's strength is adequately maintained,
and a less extensive redaction of debt aimed
at. They are of opinion that posterity, in
that it will benefit from the money spent in
years gone by in building up Britain's great-
ness, has a right to enntr;bute
to the cost of the blessings wi will
enjoy. Mr. Gsalitai is pabiaA as a holder
of the balance betwali tie easy going who
would mortgage the lurnre too much to un-
duly spare the present, and those rigidly
stern economists who would neglect necessity
and impoverish the existing generation in
;heir feverish haste to attain the enviable
p sition of being, in a national sense, out of
debt.
.The essence of his position is this;
do not grudge the wherewithal to susiain
your country's establishment upon a fitting
and staple scale, then clear off as much obli-
gation as the circumstances warrant. Thus
with trade under a cloud, industry di-
pressed, and times generally hard, he would
!egard it as far more necessary to treat the
tax-paver lightly than to give slavish adher-
once to a plan laid down under different
onditions of wiping off a set:proportion of
debt. Bat at any period when through
vmfnerc al prosperity the country might be
c:
well able to afford a substantial call ukon its
makeis viguroas pyi to