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

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Sun

LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 1863.

'Twopence off the Income-tax and Fivepence from
the Tea Duty well render last night's Budget wel-
come td 'Mu homestead in the land. The gist of
Mr. GLADSTONE'S new Financial Statement may
be regarded as given in those two most important,
announcements. The rest of his nearly three hours
oration was little more in fact than so much rheto-
rical garniture to the intimation of those same
remissions. An estimated excess of income over
expenditure to the extent of but a trifle short
of £4,000,000 has afforded the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, it Will now be seen, the op-
portunity of which he has for once happily
Been not so slow in availing himself. Even
with our enormous disbureements, the right hon. gen-
tleman showed that the prospective surplus for the
ensuing financial year would not, according to any
reasonable calculation, be short of, at the very least,
£3,741,000. Hence the possibility not merely of a
choice between an appreciable diminution of tho
income tax and a perceptible reduction of the war
duty upon tea, but—we hardly yet seem to have
fully realised the full scope of the beneficence of this
double boon—for a dropping of a fraction of those
two hefty, ioardeus simultaneously ! More ame-
liorations, even 'then, are vouchsafed to the coun-
try by our great financier in addition to
the two most important ones here spec:fled at
the very outset of our remarks. But, valuable and
deeply interesting though several of these would
infallibly have been under ordinary circumstances—
they dwindle into comparative insignificance when
coupled with the announcement made last night,
almost in one and the same breath, by Mr. GLAD
STONE, that the Income-tax will be henceforth 7d,
instead of 93. in the pound sterling ; and that the
duty upon tea will henceforth be at the one uniform
rate of one shilling !
When it is remembered that the remis-
sion of 2d. in the pound on the Income Tax
means nothing less than the foregoing by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer of £1,600,000 per
annum under that head—and that the dropping of
3d. upon tea is equivalent to the abandonment of
£1,300,000 under that head—it will be perceived
at a glance that very nearly three millions sterling,
that exactly £2,900,000 sterling, are allowed to
slip out of the estimated surplus of £3,741,000.
Mr. GLADSTONE has undertaken, with the best
. grace possible, to yield up all this, too, not
as it were upon compulsion, but quite voluntarily and
at once. Moreover, in addition to this—his scheme
for the new Financial Year, as elaborately explained
by him last evening to the House of Commons in
Committee of Ways and MeanF, involves' in it a

lesser, but still far from inconsiderable boon in the
shape of a distinct abolition of certain small charges
upon consumers, equivalent altogether annually to
a sum of £143,000. Beyond which and to complete
the whole catalogue of the new remissions resolved
upon by our Financier there is his ingenious and
somewhat complex. , system of abatement in
the mode of levying the income tax
upon minor incomes—a system of abatement,
resulting in the remission under the head
of those minor incomes, of a yearly sum of
not leas than £300,000 altogether. So that, com-
biningtogether in one total, are twopenny remission
of the income-tax, yielding £1,600,000, the five-
penny !eduction of the tea duty sweeping off an-
other 11'300,000, the abatement of the income-tax
on various incomes to the estimated extent of
£300,000, and the abolition of small charges
on commerce to the tune of £143,000, we
have a loss, to the
.revenue for the ensu-
ing year of precisely- .£3,343,000. -Recollect
however, that the estimated revenue for the finan-
cial year before us has akeady been set down by .
7.4.1 r. GLADSTONE at L 71,490,000, whereas the eati-
mated expenditure be puts at E 1,553,000 less than
~ghat of last year, or in round numbers at £67,749,000,
eAubstracting which total of expenditure from the
°lmmediately preceding total of revenue, we have, as
the very welcome quotient, the prospective surplus
before specified, the surplus namely of £3,741,000.
Nor is even thii all. By placing all charities andchari-
table corporations henceforth within the operation of
the Income Tax, as Mr. GLADSTONE distinctly pro-
poses to place them, and by one or two other minor
imposts, he furthermore enhances that excess of in-
come over expenditure by an additional L 133,000!
Peri ving,
as he calculates he shall, from the exten-
sion of the
Income Tax to the charities and chari-
table corporation £75,000 out of that supplemen-
£sB,ooo he
tart' £133,000, the remaining
announced modifications in
draws from his already
an equalisation of the duty
regard to tobacco.rom
equivalent to that on
chicory,on makicg it
t'ffee. From the imposition of the same license
ou bare
to be taken out by hotels and coffeehouses. From
raising the duty paid by beer dealcrs, who having
detained a bi:er license through a spirit license, had
aitel wards:dropped the
ekirit license and continued