The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-04 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

Detailing the features of the Budget, the Times
expresses the opinion that in the case of the mileage duty,
which Mr. Gladstone proposes to reduce from a penny to a
farthing a mile, it is probable that the House of Commons,
which hes greater common sense thanjany one of its mem-
bers, will decline to make three-fourths of • bite et a
cherry, and will abolish the whole of the duty at once.
With regard to the national debt, though it is a cause for
congratulation that we have not followed the dismal
examples held up by Mr. Gladstone last night of Conti-
nental nations who have recklessly increased their obliga-
tions in • time of profound peace—the Tiffief can only
regret the small progress which the right hon. gentlemen
promises us in the direction of a reduction of the sum.
The grounds on which he appealed to the House of Com-
mons last night would have justified a call to much more
strenuous exertions, and the practical measure suggested
most appear on consideration very disproportionate to Mr.
Gladstone's argument. What he proposes is, in truth,
nothing more nor less than this : to set aside a sum some-
what less than half a million a year towards the reduction
of the debt. This, in itself, must appear a very modest
proposal, and, even if the result be. a diminution of the
debt by 36 millions in 20 yeses, we cannot be very proud
of it. It is, however, something to have a recognition
me the fart of the Chasweltag, . the Kzehequ•r el}
the duty of odnifiderini Our permanent burdens. We
have gone on too long content to retain things as they
were, contracting new debts whenever occasion arose, end
content in times of proeperity to lessen the weight of taxa-
tion. There are limits within which this is perfectly justi-
fiable, when it is better to free the industry of the
country from the trammels of impolitic taxes than to
attempt to reduce the national debt. These limits are,
howersr, now reached, and if the budget of 1866 has no
other claim to attention it will deserve to be remembered
as that in which the duty of the peeing generation to pos-
terity was first Insisted upon by a Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer.
The observations of the Daily Ness upon Mr. Glad.
stone's financial scheme will be found in our leading
article columns.

The Post forbears for the present to speak of the merits
of Mr. Gladstone's method of reducing the natioual debt,
and adds the remark that if the present budget does not
effect those substantial remissions of taxation which
specially characterised those of the past few years, it
is not the less indicative of great national prosperity. The
expenditure for the ensuing year too closely approximates
to that of the year just brought to s close to permit of any
considerable reduction of those taxes by which it must be
met ; but the surplus which Mr. Gladstone, notwithstandl
mg, finds at his disposal furnishes on that very account the
most conclusive evidence of the healthy condition of the
national finances. The distinctive feature of his financial
policy has been that the actual loss entailed on the Ex-
chequer by the remission of taxation has never equalled
that which was estimated, and s surplus has consequently
invariably been created by the sheer elasticity of those
sources from which the diminished revenues were supplied.
The Herald says that an orator has seldom disappointed
his audience more than Mr. Gladstone did the House of
Commons het night, and it will wager, as to the question
of the national debt, that not half-a-dozen members mi-
derstoodhis oomplicated scheme. The proposals themselves,
however, neither disappoint nor dissatisfy the Herald.
Everybody knew beforehand that he would not
do justioe to the agricultural interest by a reduc-
tion of the malt duty or its conversion into a tax upon
beer ; and if the particular remissions of taxation which
he proposes were not urgently called for and are not likely
to prove very beneficial, it would be rather hypercritical
to make much complaint upon the subject, seeing that
after providing for the particular losses occasioned
by the Austrian Treaty, his new scheme for the
reduction of the debt and the necessary margin, he had
but two hundred thousand pounds to give away. As to
the latter scheme how is it that Mr. Gladstone did not
think of this matter before ! Mr. Jevons's statements are
far from absolute novelties. What are we to think of a
minister who having been Chancellor of the Exchequer
now for seven years has only just discovered
the importance of a systematic effort to reduce the debt!
If the danger is as great as he tries to make out the mea-
sure is either quite needless and a wanton waste, or crimi-
nally inadequate. If Mr. Gladstone's premises are sound ;
if it is the duty of this country to pay off the debt, and if
she has only fifty years at the utmost left to pay it off in,
he should propose not the application of a paltry sum of a
million to the reduction of the debt, but some grand scheme
by which fifteen or twenty millions should be every year
appropriated to that purpose. Then he would be conse-
quent and consistent ; now he is simply absurd.
The Advertiser thinks the policy of Mr. Gladstone in
relation to the desirableness of reducing the national debt
is eminently sound. No enlightened person can dissent
from its expediency. The country will congratulate the
rlghthon.gentleman on having made a beginning in thetpro-
cess of reduction. Let us hope that Great Britain may be
blessed with an Indefinite period of peace and prosperity,
in order that he may be able to apply his financial prin-
ciples on a much larger scale than he is yet in a position
to do.

The financial statement of last night, the Telegraph re-
marks, is no exception amongst the budgets to which Mr.
Gladstone has accustomed the nation. It presents the
usual results of good management, and the commencement
which it makes on the subject of the national debt may
make it famous in distant years. History will not cavil with
it for not glittering with such largesse, and swelling with
such surplus, as some budgets of the past, but will mark it
as beginning an era of reaction against the modern vice of
public debt, and setting the just example of an effort to
release our children from the burden of our reckless im-
providence.
All the lesser proposals of the scheme, says the Star, are
admirable, and though it is competent for every critic to
pronounce Mr. Gladstone's proposal to begin paying off the
natiosal debt by converting 24,000,0001. of savings bank '
deposits into terminable annuities a lame and impotent
conclusion, it is only by tittles that so vast a work can be
begun. Even to pay off forty millions of debt in eighteen
years is more than was ever done before, except be-
tween 1800 and 1830, and under peculiar circumstances
between 1840 and 1854. Besides, that which is now to be
accomplished by means of the savings bank money may
hereafter be carried farther by means of other national
deposits; and, indeed, when once the reduction of our
obligations is established as one of the highest and most
sacred traditions of our national policy, the increment of
reduction will, if the national prosperity is not suddenly
arrested, be as remarkable as any of the many healthy
symptoms which our national finance has of late years
manifested.