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

~/ABER.

SEPT:

OCTI

Brecon • 21
Richmond 22
Monmouth 24
Manchester Autumn 25
Newmarket Ist Oct. 29
oBER.

IRI
Ar

Lincoln Antumn 20
Newmarket, Houghton 26

LEER.
Shrewsbury Autumn.... 7

SH.
LIL.

Curragh .... 2B

JUNE.

Wicklow l7 1 Curragh .... 23

JULY,
Bellewstown
Down Royal Corporation. 23 I

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

HERALD.—We may congratulate Mr. Gladstone
and the country upon the evidence which all the
leading propositions his Budget furnish of his
real readiness to learn, although he makes wry faces
in the process. The Bidget he brought before the
House of Commons las; night substantially carries
out the views put forward by the Conservative
party. The army and navy estimates have been
reduced, as Mr. Disraeliinsisted they should be, and
the proceeds are to be applied to the removal of the
war duty on tea and the reduction
theireduc
tionsoufpporthet
of m
incomer.-
tax, as the Opposition, by
Horsfall's motion, demanded. The great reductions
of taxation which the Bidget of last night offers
are the work of the leaders of the Oppositions the
petty, peddling projects for inconveniencing the
public are Mr. Gladstones 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 and common wee 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, and, 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 available surplus, the re-
mission of taxation became an absolute necessity.
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. Tao points of dispute to which
it may possibly give rise will depend rather upon
the advisability of remitting taxes to so large an
amount than upon the means by which they are
remitted. The question will probably be asked,
whether in truth the Government can rely upon a
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 mar.aged its transformations and re-
constructions farmore efficiently and at half the cost.

Have nut jobs, and blunders, and follies, called
" fixed forts," swallowed millions of English money,
without replacing a wooden fleet, or procuring a
serviceable gun P Thanks, however, to our finan-
cial and commercial policy, even the accumulated
distresses of Lancashire and Ireland have not
been sufficient to create a deficit iu the Treasury.
Last year there was but the shadow of a surplus;
this year the revenue 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 and trying times the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer is enabled to come down to the house and
propose not only to strike twopence 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 precaTions incomes.
By fixing £lOO as the limit of liability to the tax,
removing the distinction of £l5O incomes, and al-
lowing every taxable income between £lOO and
£2OO to make a deduction of £6O, he has conferred
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
be 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 he the most popular Budget which hss 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 as that popularly previously was. People
will hereafter become in a measure reconciled to the
Ithnactoratheo-
which is tolerable. W e could have wished that Mr.
Gladstone had applied his powerful mind to the
tuagsh; s
taitlile far astftro they will, one and all, admit
pleasant, it is now an evil
e
consideration of the practicability of making a dis-
tinction 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 ques-
tion, his efforts would have been crowned with suc-
cess. However, while regretting that he has not
dealt with this aspect of the question, we must not
be insensible of nor ungrateful for, the amelioration
of the pressure caused by The 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 ; and if
we are bound to be 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.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The screw steam frigate Orlando, 46, Capt. Ran-
dolph, from Bermuda, which arrived in Plymouth
Sound on Wednesday evening, brought as passen-
gers Dents. ;!'lore and Gosselin, and Ensigns Leir,
White, and Harman, of the 39th Regiment ; Mr.
Dennison, engineer, invalided from the screw steam
sloop Petrel, 11 ; Commander George W. Watson,
nine other naval invalids, and three French naval
and two military invalids, from Vera Cruz, landed
at Bermuda from the French ships of war Vauban
and Albatross. Very fine weather, with the wind
from the north-west, was eA perienced on the pas-
sage home. The crew are all healthy. The ship is
in good condition, but leaks about three inches an
hour when at sea. She left Plymouth on the 24th
of December, 1861. _ _

Her Majesty's screw steam frigate Leander, 51,
2,760 tons, 400-horse power, was taken from her
moorings in Sheerness harbour on Wednesday, in
charge of Captain T. P. Thompeon, of the Steam
Reserve, for the trial of her machinery at the
measured mile off Maplin Sands. The machi-
nery was in charge of Mr. Woolon, chief engi-
neer of the ship, and Mr. W. Rumble, inspector of
machinery afloat. Mr. G. Blaxland, chief engi-
neer of her Majesty's dockyard at Sheerness, super.
intended the working ; Mr. John Dinnin, inspector
of machinery from the Admiralty, also attended
on the part of the Government. The trial was not
quite successful, owing to excessive priming, and
the vessel was therefore taken out again on Thurs-
day, in charge of the same officials, when a com-
pletely successful trial was made, with the following
results ;—True mean speed at full boiler power,
10.448 knots per hour ; revolutions—maximum 57,
mean 55 to 56 per minute ; pressure of steam, 20 ;
vacuum, forward and aft, 24 ; draught of water,
fore 19ft. 9in., aft 21ft. llin. ; temperature—main
deck, 56 deg. ; engine-room, 68 deg. ; stokehole,
maximum, 110 deg., minimum 74 deg. The vessel
is fitted with Griffith's screw, pitch 24ft., length 3ft,,
immersion of upper edge 2ft. 6in. The Leander
was commissioned on Tuesday last, when a pennant
was hoisted by Mr. Denton H. Spicer, master, for
Capt. Thomas Harvey, late of the Cressy. She is
being fitted with additional cabins and appliances
for a Commander and staff of a Commodore, as she
will carry a Commodore's pennant, Capt. Harvey
being appointed the senior officer on the southern
division of the Pacific station.
Her Majesty's steam storeship Supply, Master
Commander W. A. Balliston, from the Mediter-
ranean, yesterday arrived at Woolwich laden with
returned stores.

The following appointments were made on
Wednesday at the Admiralty :—Commander Fran-
cis M. Prattent to the Leander ; Lieut. W. Ede
C. Cookson and Lieut. H. M'lnroy to the Leander;
Lieutenant Cecil G. S. Stanley to the Edgar ;
Lieut. G. D. Bushe to the Archer; Lieut. W. N. Tuf-
nell to the Medina; Lieut. T. S. Dickinson to the
Valorous ; Lieut. Clayton Mitchell to the Cam-
bridge; Jabez Loane, master, to the Asia; J. H.
Alland, master, to the Cumberland, for the Medusa;
Sub-Lieut. Algernon C. Litttleton, Sub-Lieut. C. J.
Kent, and Sub-Lieut. C. F. W. Johnson, to the
Leander; G. C. C. Carter, midshipman, to the
Valorous; C. It. Smith, midshipman, to the Edgar;
Mathew J. Harrison, Lennox Napier, Reginald F.
H. Henderson, Edward S. Dugdaie, Charles J. Fel-
lo wes, Hon. F. C. Lascelles, F. V. Isaac, Francis H.
Tablor, and Cecil G. Foljambe, midshipmen, to the
Leander; Sydney A. Holt, naval cadet, to the
Leander ; George T. Stronnach, assistant-engineer,
to the Cumberland, as supernumerary; Thomas H.
C. Gray, paymaster, to the Leander ; John T. Sueter,
paymaster, confirmed, in the Petrel; William V.
Miller, paymaster, to the Revenge ; Charles W.
Eels, paymaster, to the Marlborough; Frederick
Brady, paymaster, to the Britannia; John S. Fal-
con, assist.-paymaster, to the Leander; Hamilton
Williams, clerk, to the Leander ; Frederick It. G.
Wright, clerk, to the Cumberland ; William S.
Watson, assist.-clerk, to the St. Vincent ; and
Clement P. Penny, assist.-clerk, to the Leander.