The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-18 00:00:00

HERALD.—We may congratulate Mr. Gladstone
and the country upon the evidence which all the
leading propositions of his Budget furnish of his
real readiness to le irn, although he makes wry faces
in the process. The Budget he brought before the
House of Commons last night substantially carries
out the views put forward by the Conservative
party. The army and navy estimates have been
reduced, as Mr. Disraeli insisted they should be, and
the proceeds are to he applied to the removal of the
war duty on tea and the reduction of the income-
tax, as the Opposition, by their support of Mr.
Horsfalt's motion, demanded. The great reductions
of taxation which the Budget of last night offers
ate the work of the leaders of the Opposition ; the
petty, peddling projects for inconveniencing the
public are Mr. Gladstone's own.
TIMES.—When we have said that in all its principal
features the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Finan-
cial Statement has been fully anticipated, we have
pronounced its highest praise. What is best to be
done is dictated by circumstances forced upon the
observation of all, and the moderate degree of
humility end common sense required for acquiesc-
ing in the general verdict is the quality we are to
hope for in a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr.
Gladstone has the happy art of telling us what we
ought to do and must do, au& while binding us to
a necessity, flittering us with the sense of free
choice and self-respect. He gives us some small
taxes to play with; he lets us put on or throw off
a few stamps and licences. We try if they will fit,
and if they don't something else will. But, on the
whole, we do as we are bid. Just now we are re-
ceiving the reward of our obedience. After endur-
ing for the last few years an enormous increase of
expenditure, we are rewarded by seeing three and
a half millions removed from the load, and,
though that load is still heavy enough, it is light
by comparison.
POST.—There can be little doubt that Mr. Glad-
stone's Budget will meet with a favourable recep-
tion. With so large an re-
mission
of taxation became an absolute necessity.
available surplus, the
The income tax is particularly obnoxious, and there-
fore in it some diminution was indispensable. But,
turning from direct to indirect taxation, there is no
commodity which more imperatively demands a re-
mission of the duty imposed upon it than tea. It
has ceased to be a luxury, and has become a neces-
sary of life. In the stormy debates to which the
Budget of 1861 gave rise the Opposition urged the
repeal of the tea duty. It will not be therefore in
their power to object now to a measure which they
were themselves the first to advocate. As Mr. Glad-
stone well observed, his budget makes no preten-
sions to originality. The. points of dispute to which
it may p )ssibly give rise will depend rather upon
the advisability of remitting taxes to so large an
will probably be asked,
Gloonvernment can rely upon a
amount than upon the means by which they are
rwehmeittht eedr Tin t
thuet
hqtuhe
es t
surplus of £500,000, and whether in the present
condition of Europe and America it is advisable to
strike upwards of £3,250,000 out of the revenues of
the kingdom. To these questions, however, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will doubtless be
able
to offer satisfactory replies.
DAILY NEWS.—Mr. Gladstone desires the country
to regard his present Budget as the fulfilment of a
solemn undertaking to reduce the burdens of the
country, and relax the "tension" of the national
finances. Since the beginning of the Russian war,
our expenditure has increased at a rate of more
than eighteen per cent. The Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer benevolently attributes much of this
" optional" expenditure—dependent of public feel-
ing at home, on the policy of foreign states, on the
prevailing appetite for expenditure, which grows
by expenditure, and which seizes the public, the
departments, and responsible Ministers themselves
—to the transformation or reconstructions required
by the advance of science in the naval and military
services. It is not perhaps Mr. Gladstone's business
to inquire too closely into this convenient fiction of
the War Department. But it is notorious that a Go-
vernment over the water, not remarkable for military
parsimony, has managed its transformations and re-
constructions farmore efficiently and at half the cost.
Have not jobs, and blunders, and follies, called
" fixed forts," swallowed millions of English money,
without replacing a wooden fleet, or procuring a
gerviceable gun ? Thanks, however, to our finan-
cial and commercial policy, even the accumulated
distres es of Lancashire and Ireland have not
been sufficient to create a deficit in the Treasury.
Last year there was bat the shadow of a surplus ;
this year the reveeue shows an increase of £805,000,
and the estimated revenue of the opening financial
year shows a surplus of £3,741,000. So that in most
adverse aad trying times the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer is enabled to come down to the house and
propose not only to strike twoptece in the pound
off the income-tax, but actually to administer relief
to that large class of respectable sufferers who are
condemned to pay income tax, not out of their abun-
dance, but out of their starvation. Mr. Gladstone is
the first Minister who has had the courage to alle-
viate the pressure of the income tax where it is
most severely felt, if not to redress the inequalities
of its incidence on fixed and precarious incomes.
By fixing £lOO as the limit of liability to the tax,
removing the distinction of £l5O incenses, and al-
ilowing
mokeveryo
a deductiontaxableircoomf
xe6o, he has conferredbetween £lOO and
a substantial boon on thousands of deserving vic-
tims, whose incomes, as he confesses, are tested
with terrible accuracy.
ADVERTISER.—So favourable a budget could not but
he received with frequent and hearty plaudits by the
house. And no less heartily will it be hailed in all
parts and by all classes throughout the country.
It will be the most popular Budget which has been
submitted to the House of Commons for many years
past, and it will contribute very considerably to in-
crease Mr. Gladstone's popularity with all classes,
great es that popularity previously was. People
will hereafter become in a measure reconciled to the
Income-tax ; at least they
will, one and all, admit
that though still far from pleasant, it is now an evil
which is tolerable. We could have wished that Mr.
Gladstone had applied his powerful mind to the
consideration of the practicability of making a dis
unction between such incomes as are precarious and
those which are fixed and permanent. No doubt the
matter is surrounded with difficulties, but it is the
province of a man of genius to grapple with difficul-
ties, and his glory to overcome them. And of this
we feel assured, that had the right hon. gentleman
brought his superior intellect to deal with the qnes-
tion, his t fforts would have been crowned with suc-
cess. However, while regretting that he has not
dealt with this aspect of the qaestion, we must not
be insensible of nor ungrateful for, the amelioration
of the pressure caused by she Income-tax, which
the provisions of his Budget, as developed last night
will insure. The alterations and reductions in the
Income-tax will be felt to be a great boon k and if
we are bound to he thankful for small mercies, the
nation will not be ungrateful for a blessing of such
great magnitude as that which Mr. Gladstone has
benevolently bestowed on the whole country.