The Express.
London, England, 1865-04-28 00:00:00

Customs duties to conquer. Mr. GtaosroNz has
taught his admirers to be critical and exacting,
and to try him by his own high standard of

achievement.

Hi; constant benefactions have

made them ungrateful. They are beginnini_
already to fancy they miss the old fire and ful-
ness of eloquence, the far-reaching generalizations,
the suggestive doctrines, the weighty warnings,
the close and anxious reasoning, the richness and
felicity of illustration. Yet no one will deny that
any orator less gifted than the present CHANCELLOR
of the EXCHEQUER might have stated this year's
Budget in three-quarters of an hour. Mr. Gran-
Krona, whose financial statements already exceed
the limits of one volume, treate his Budget as a
text for • valuable and instructive essay to be
pondered and studied with pleasure and profit by
thousands of readers whom his reductions of taxa-
tion concern only as an example. Frenchmen ad-
mire them for their form and plan, and accuse
them neither of redundancy nor of prolixity.
They find in them a beginning, a middle,
and an end—a rase virtue in English com-
positions. Last evening, for instance, Mr.
GLADOTONE began by comparing and contrasting
the financial position of this country in the
first and in the last year of the present House of
Commons. He did this apparently for the sake
of showing that our expenditure bad, by more than
twelve millions, increased since the Ruasian war ;
but that this increase wee in the military, not in
the civil services, and was entirely consonant with
the wishes and feelings of the nation, and that the
civil expenditure had actually, during the same
period, decreased, while the elasticity of the
revenue and the general prosperity of the country
were steadily and continuously improving. It is
noticeable that whenever Mr. GLADSTONE is dwell-
ing with complacency on the growing revenue of
the country, and apparently condoning the large
expenditure, he somehow lets his audience very
clearly understand that they might be at least as
happy and as prosperous at a smaller cost, and
that while he undertakes to be responsible for the
growth of revenue, they must bear the re-
sponsibility of the large expenditure. He is
obliged to talk of " real diminution " and "true
"expenditure," and to make other nice distinc-
tion', and the wholesome impression on the
hearer's mind is that the expenditure is much
more real than the diminution. The tone
in which he speaks of the reduction of the national
debt, of the precariousness of a growing revenue,
of the budgets of France, and of the income-tax,
is certainly not that of • Minister who seeks
to justify a large expenditure. He does not
think that a reduction of the National Debt by
some seventeen millions is • very brilliant result ;
he says it is a mistake to suppose that France
spends more than we do year by year; he reminds us
that our prosperity may at any time be endangered
by a bad harvest, or any other sudden calamity; and
that he is not one of those who would treat the in-
come tax as • fixed and constant source of revenue.
Mr. GLLDLITONE, as usual, indulges in several ex-
cursions and digressions, and these are by no means
the least interesting or least eloquent passages of
his speech. His eulogy on Mr. Cosnruc—earnest
and sincere aa it 'cold not fail to be—was perhaps
a little laboured in expression, but it was heard
with pleasure. In referring to the steady progress
of our trade with France sinoe the Treaty, he ex-
plains how the French trade appears to
increase more rapidly than the English ; it
is simply because French trade had fallen
so low at the close of the great wars.
Upon the question of the malt duty, and all the
arguments advanced before Easter for its reduc-
tion, Mr. Gransrona fastens like a wrestler,
and gives the agricultural, or rather the barley-
growing, interest a very heavy fall. He shows
that they are growing more barley and selling it
better than ever before ; that the people are
drinking more beer than ever ; that the uses
of malt for cattle-feeding are • more
than doubtful experiment; and that the
repeal of the malt duty must be the
deathblow to indirect taxation, for how could the
duties on spirits or wine survive the tax upon
beer t So that all the maltsten are to get out of
Mr. GranaroNE will be the option of having the
duty charged by weight. As to the grievance of
the " agricultural interest," be repudiates and
regrets the imputation of legialating for any in-
terest but that of the whole country. The
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER bows with • better
grace than on a former occasion to the will of the
House on the Fire Insurance question. Scep-
tical as to the fiscal effects of the reduction after
the failure of last year's experiment, he looks to the
necessity of • still more sweeping remission if
the present reduction should result in loss. He
entreats the House to leave untouched the
moderate sum of a quarter of a million which is
reserved out of his surplus ; and while he holds out
hopes to the proprietors of public conveyances
he lets the House and the country know
that he shall be happy when their diminished
zeal for expenditure will permit him to listen
, I favourably to • host of other claims for reduction.
last)

Callum CouNcn..--Summonses have been issued
for s Cabinet Council on Saturday next, at the
First Lord of the Treasury's official residence, in
Downing-street. In consequence of the noble
Premier's steams from town the Council will not
meet until two o'clock.

Mr. Mum, the author of the Fugitive Slave Lam,
mains to the index oe the subject el the aseeminalieu of
Yr. Limas, rye :—" As to the mime which hie berm nem-
mitted, some will view it with mere abhorrence this the
people of the South, bat they will know, es will equally all
well.telenced minds, that tt is the nereseerg off+p►ing et
these seems of bloodshed and ermdm i• every tam al en.
bridled term whisk have 'linage& the iambs el the
Smith by Northire smirk =rebuked esztaisly, and their
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