The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-17 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

The house having resolved itself into Committee of Ways
and Means, Mr. assay in the chair,
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER rose, amid
loud and genet al cheering, to make his financial statement
for the year. The right h,n. gentleman spoke as follows :
Sir, the causes which have during recent years attracted an
unusual degree of interest to the annual financial statement
are not of such a nature that any well-advised lover of his
country should desire them to bo permanent. They may be
summed up thus—that the few years which have lastpassed
have been years of unusual pressure upon our resources,
and that times of unusual pressure are necessarily times of
unusual anxiety. That anxiety during the course of last
session found its most legitimate method of expression in a
resolution of the House of Commons. In that resolution her
Majesty's Government found it declared by the house, the
legitimate organ of the sense of the country, especially upon
such a subject, that while it was the desire of the house--I
am not now quoting the words, but referring to the spirit of
the resolution—that ample provision should be made for the
honour and security of the country and for the efficiency of
the public service, it was likewise the feeling of the house
that the burden of taxation was inconvenient, and that
efforts ought to be made by the Executive Government to
afford relief to the people in that respect. Therefore, sir,
the statement which I have now to submit is not merely a
statement of the annual account and estimate of receipt and
expenditure, but it is likewise, I may presume to say, the
answer of the Government to a solemn, deliberate, and I
believe I may add, a unanimous resolution of the House of
Commons. (Hear.) And, sir, it is well the people should
understand what the Government by the mouth of my noble
friend the First Lord of the Treasury fully acknowledged,
that that resolution was not premature, but on the contrary,
was well founded and justified by the circumstances of the
case. It is well they should understand how rapid, how
say how exceptional, has been up
of our expenditure, and how
to peculiar, a
certain
point venture
the
growth
o
much of it was to be desired, and, indeed, required, in the
interests of the public that particular attention should be
paid to the subject. The expenditure of the financial year
1858.9, which followed the Russian War, was an expendi-
ture very considerably exceeding that which had prevailed
beforo the Russian War. It amounted to £64,664,000 ; but
in the year 1859-60 the expenditure increased to £69,502,000,
showing an augmentation of £4,838,000. In the year 1860-1
it rose to £72,842,000, showing an augmentation within two
years of £8,178,000. (Hear, hear.) The average of the four
years, from 1859 to 1863, which I take because they are the
years to which the general description of the rapid growth
and augmentation peculiarly applies, was £71,195,000, in-
cluding the amount laid out in fortifications, and £70,678,000
without the fortifications. The increase upon the aggregate
occurred at a time when we had been enjoying a peculiar
relief from expenditure in consequence of a diminution Of
more than £2,000,000 on the charge of the National Debt,
owing to the lapse of Long Annuities. Now, Sir, it may
bring this statment and the state of facts which it is in-
to the mind of
the tendoeodottoto
iitl
tl
eues7t riaf,tei
oms t oe
ared
oclearly
pa
anrdi n
gfully
the aggregate ex-
penditure at two periods, I compare that portion of the ex-
penditure which may be said to be matter of option and
choice on the part of the Legislature, because a large part
of the expenditure of the country—first of all, that which
is devoted to the payment of dividend on the National Debt,
and, secondly, that which is devoted to the discharge of
other engagements placed upon the Consolidated Fund—is
not in point of fact lractically within the control of Par-
liament from year to year. There is another important
item—that, namely, connected with the collection of the
rules, revenue—which
an
d dooa
notis
,partake
r e g ul at e d
o invariably
theremarkable
upward by certain fixed
movement to which I have referred. I wish to say
that these two items are items which it is de-
sirable to exclude from the account. I desire, therefore, to
etate briefly to the committee what was the growth of our
expenditure at the period to which I have referred. After
striking off from the total the two very important items,
and the only two of great consequence, which may be re-
garded either as fixed or as varying according to certain

constant rules—namely, the interest of the debt and the
charge of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 for the collec-
tion of the revenue, in the year 1858-9 our expenditure—
that is, the expenditure which depended upon the state of
opinion in the country and upon the vote of Parliament—
was £31,621,000. In the year 1860-1 it had risen to
£42,125,000. There had been an increase of X10,500,',00, or
about 25 per cent., in two years only. If we make the com-
parison with the year which immediately preceded the Rus-
sian war, it is still more remarkable. In the year 1853 4 the
optional part of the expenditure of the country—the com-
mittee will understand the sense in which I use that epithet
—was £23,511,090. In the year 1860-1 it was X 42,125,000.
(Hear, hear.) The increase in a period of seven years was
£18,614,000, or more than 80 per cent. That, sir, was the
state of facts which attracted the particular notice of the
House of Commons last year. Let it not be supposed that
in mentioning these facts I mean to imply that that in-
crease was a causeless increase. The causes are well known.
They are subject, I believe, to little controversy or dispute.
There were the extensive and costly transformations which
were required by the progress of military and naval science.
There was also the progress of philanthropic views in re-
gard to the condition of those who serve their country,
which had led to great expenditure, but an expenditure
grudged, I believe, by none, with the view of adding
to the well-being of these services. There was a great
increase of our military establishments, having refer-
ence in no inconsiderab,e degree, as must always be the
case—such is the sympathy that now prevails between
nation and nation—to the like increase of military establish-
ments abroad, and to the general circumstances of Europe.
There was a desire in which, I think, the public, whether
unanimously or not I do not say, but in which they very
generally partook—namely, that the fixed defences of the
country should be strengthened. And, lastly, there were in
1.860-1 direct war charges which came to a very considerable
amount. I should not do full justice to the circumstances
of the case if I did not add that while these causes prevailed
another cause came into operation which is quite sure to
appear whenever, from whatever reason, a vast and sudden
increase of expenditure takes place. I mean that together
with the increased expenditure itself there grows up what
may be called a spirit of expenditure—(hear)—a desire per-
vading the country, insensibly and unconsciously, perhaps,
but yet really affecting the spirit of the people, the spirit of
Parliament, the spirit of the departments, and perhaps even
the spirit of those who are most immediately rceponsible—
a spirit of expenditure and some relaxation of those prin-
ciples and rules of prudence which direct and require that
whatever service is to be performed for the public should be
performed in the most efficient manner, but likewise at the
lowest practical cost. (Hear.) Sir, it is not on the part of
the Government that I make that statement. All I have to
say on the part of the Government is this—and it may be
said without reproach to any other body or any other Power
—that I do not think that in proposing to Parliament the out-
lay of these vast sums her Majesty's Government in the
slightest degree outran the general state of public opinion
and conviction, but if it were necessary it could be proved
from the annals of the time, and in particular, perhaps, from
the annals and journals of this house, that instead of having
outrun the course of opinion their proposals rather fell some-
what short of it. But the effect of all this has been that
the finances of the country have been kept in what may
be called a state of tension for a pericd of four years. And
having spoken thus far without reference to the special part
taken by any organ of the State is regard to this expendi-
ture, I do not hesitate to make the admission that that ten-
sion was increased by the policy pursued by the Government
and recommended by them to the House in the year 1860.
For one result of introducing in a period of high expendi-
ture a policy involving remissions of taxation, although it
night have been warranted under the eircumstances, was
undoubtedly to produce an increase of that tension and a
necessary aggravation of whatever solicitude might have
prevailed in respect to the condition of our finances. Well,
that is the general position of affairs anterior to the state of
circumstances which I have to describe to-day. And in
now coming to consider the balance-sheet of the year just
expired, which I have to submit to the committee, I must
beg hon. members to remember the peculiar terms in which
the estimates of last year were presented, because I do not
think it possible to form a just appreciation of the real con-
dition of the country, or of the power and elasticity of its
resources, without taking those particular circumstances
into view. The mere figures of a comparison between one
year and another, in the first place, requires to undergo a
careful analysis before we can arrive at sound conclusions ;
and, in the second place, they require an accurateregard to
be had to the main circumstances determining the commer •
chat and material condition of the nation before our conclu-
sions can be such as will be fully sufficient to warrant any
course of policy which we may seek to found upon them.
Sir, I submitted the estimates of last year to the House of
Commons on the part of my colleagues, and speaking
their sense, with particular reserve. We are able to
present only Estimates of income and expenditure which
may be said to have precisely balanced one another,
and we were compelled to accompany the presentation of
that too nicely balanced statement with a reference to the
particular causes which we thought it was obvious might
disturb, and fatally disturb, that balance in an unfavourable
sense. The account of receipt and expenditure for the last
year which we have now to invite you to consider is, I think,
a remarkable and hopeful account. But in order to judge
whether it is really, and how far, remarkable and hopeful,
it is absolutely necessary to have regard to the specialities
in the state of the country. I don't now refer simply to the
fact that the harvests have now fur a series of three years
been in no instance equal to an average yield ; but I refer to
two causes, both special, and both of which, also, as it hap-
pens, have been mentioned in the short conversation which
preceded the commencement of our principal business to-
night. Tnero is, in the first place, the condition of the Lan-
cashire cotton manufacture. Towards that Lancashire to
which up to this time every Englishman has referred, if not
with pride, yet with satisfaction and thankfulness, as among
the most remarkable, or perhaps the very most remarkable of
all the symbols that could be presented of the power, the
progress, and the prosperity of England—(hear, hear)—to-
wards that Lancashire we feel now more warmly and more
thankfully than ever in regard to every moral aspect of its
condition, (Cheers.) The lessons which within the last 12
months have been conveyed, if in one aspect they have been
painful, and even bitter, yet in other aspects, and in those,
too, which more intimately and permanently relate to the
condition and prospects of the country, have been lessons
such as I will venture to say none of us could have hoped
to learn. For, however sanguine may have been the
anticipations entertained as to the enduring power
and pluck of the English people, I do not think
that any one could have estimated that power of en-
durance, that patience, that true magnanimity in humble
life, at a point as high as we now see that it has actually
reached. (Cheers.) But, sir, with respect to the material
condition of Lancashire, no doubt for the time the tale we
have to tell is a melancholy one. It was my duty, so me-
nacing did we regard the state of the case 12 months ago, to
state frankly to the Committee, in presenting the Estimates
of the year, that vie had before us a deficiency in the supply
of the material of labour in Lancashire of so alarming u
character that if it continued throughout the year wecould

not presume to say that our estimates would be justified by
the result; that the case was so serious that, it was useless
for us at that time to pretend to ask the house to make such
provisions as might be adequate to the calamities which
were impending over us ; and that consequently we thought
it bast to wait for the teaching of experience, and to meet
the evil when it arose. Now, the anticipations of that evil
were founded on the supposition that the scarcity would

continue at the point which it had then reached; but what
has been the fact ? The scarcity has not only continued at

that point, but, unhappily, it has proceeded much further.
The price of cotton, which I quoted to the Committee last

year as having been in the spring of 1861—the price of
those which are commonly taken as the average descrip-
tions of American cotton—viz., the Upland and the New
Orleans, which in the spring of 1861 bad been between 7d.

and Bd. per lb., had risen at the time at which I spoke to

between 13d. and 14d. per lb. And that aas the state of
things which we regarded as so formidable to the revenue

of the country. But in the course of the last autumn that
high price was nearly doubled. and at this very moment,

as I find from the latest quotations, the price of the co ton
required to carry on our manufactories, and which usually

sells at 6d. or 7d. per lb., has risen to 24d, and 25d per
lb. (Hear, hear.) So that the calamity which has be-

fallen Lancashire, viewed in its material and com-

mercial aspects, has not only continued at the point it
then reached, but has become far more severe. It has

attained, undoubtedly, a degree of the most afflicting strin-

gency ; and the partial and temporary mitigations which
have arisen—and, thank God I they have arisen— during
the last few weeks, do not, I am afraid, warrant us in enter-

taining any sanguine hopes for the immediate future. And

yet it is with, I may almost presume to say, the wealthiest
portions of the country, and with perhaps the very wealthiest

portion of its labouring population, in that condition of

prostration and stagnation that the balanco•sheet which I

am about to present to the Committee has been arrived at.
The other special cause of depression is one which has been
little mentioned in the house, but it is one which I think
the committee will agree with me I should not be justified
in altogether overlooking,—it is the state of Ireland, and I
very much doubt whether the British public has been
awakened to the depression which during the last few years
has befallen that portion of the United Kingdom. That
depression is no doubt partly balanced by the favourable
condition of the linen manufacture, and is not concentrated
and driven to an extremity at a local point, like the distress
in Lancashire. It is diffused over the surface of the country,
its extent is as broad as the agricultural area, and it is ex-
clusively connected with the failure of the crops. But it will
be a matter of peculiar interest to the committee to receive
the information which her Majesty's Government have re-
ceived with regard to the extent of the failure in Ireland of
late years. (Hear.) Her majesty's Government have caused
statements to be carefully drawn up, as far as they are able,
to exhibit the facts of the case, and I need hardly
remind
English and Scotch members that with respect to Ireland
they have the peculiar highly
aid of a very organised and
elaborate system of agricultural statistics
llavoid all details;
carried on by
o
public authority. (Rear, hear.)
it is enough for me to present a
single
ettee
astatement,clear
viewonly
endeavouring to convey to the committee
of the basis on which it is founded, The statement refers
to the crops of the last three years, Pit6o, 1661, and 1862, and
the standard 9f comparison is wlth the crops of the preced-