The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-04 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 1862.

Our expectations in regard to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's Financial Statement for 1862-1863, j
have upon the whole been fully realized, in some
particulars they have been very considerably stir-
passed. Although the right hon. gentleman's one
eccentric little crotchet of a private brewing license
at the rate of 12s. 6d. upon the ocmpants of houses
paying above £2O rent—a vec:catious proposition
constituting the solitary flas7,7 in an otherwise ad-
mirable Budget—althoup„'n this one preposterous
little scheme of Me. GLADSTONE'S fell upon the
attentive ears of the House of Commons last evening
while in connznittee of Ways and Means as some-
what of a "' damper"—there rose a choral sound of
approval from both sides of the House so soon as
the right hon. gentleman had at length drawn his
elaborate speech to a conclusion. A single dissen-
tient among all those who briefly addressed the
Rouse afterwards, served in effect to mark, by a sort
of crowning touch the otherwise perfect unanimity
of approbation with whicb. Mr. GLADSTONE's last
Financial Statement had been listened to. And
that isolated hysterical cry of opposition blurted
out by the Radical member for Brighton, was
avowedly oo his own part no more than a mo-
mentary expression of the anguish caused by an
unlooked for stumble over what we may pre_
same to be one of his very tenderest corna. Nay,
hardly was it so 'much as a stumble—a look,
a movement, the mare threatening of a stumble,
was sufficient to 'elicit that shriek of pain and indig-
nation from tl',e lips of Mr. WHlTE—causing him in
retaliation 'to designate the unquestionably success-
ful, and. in many parts eminently brilliant, speech
of M'r. GLADSTONE last evening, on bringing for-
vai d his Financial Statement. as—[There was " a
Jo' ugh"-audible, and no wonder, when the ridiculous
'words were uttered by the member for Brighton]
—" a melancholy exhibition !" Yet, with another
remark of Mr. WHITE'S, there were assuredly, yes-
terday, but very few, if indeed there were any, upon
these closely packed benches of the House of Com-
mons, who did not concur—and that moreover tothe
Aid and absolutely. Namely, when the hon. gen-
tleman observed that, with an annual income of
X 70,000,000, it seemed positively like a step from
the sublime to the ridiculous to levy a duty of
128 ed. per annum upon the private brewing of
beer l Here, in truth, it is, at this excep-
tional point of his Budget, that Mr. GLAD-
STONE
has ingeniously contrived to illus-
trate renew the witty axiom first articulated
with a aerio-comic shrug of his shoulders, by
NAPOLEON the GB.RAI .—,
when at a little road-side
aubeive he suddenly encountered the Abbe de
l'aapT, while is the
midst of the Flight
Moscow to pada.
Here, indeed, in
this abrupt drop from the Imperial revenue of
£70,000,000 to the wretched little,
of 12s. 6d, upon private brewing'fribbling item
la
another flagrant
irstance of the one step from the sublime to the
ritlientous.

There is a popular deleFion 'abroad, 'we ttte
aware
as to the extraordinary display of eloquence by
Mr. GLADSTONE, year after year, in the early pall,
of the session, upon the occasion of his bringing
forward his Financial Statement. Yet every one
who has ever had the delight of listening to the
right bon. gentleman, while unfolding one of his
elaborate Budgets to the House of Commons, in
Committee of Ways and Means, knows, on the
contrary, perfectly well, that anything like an
ora.torical display at these times on the part of our
Chancellor of the Exchequer, is absoluteiy not to be
thought of for au instant—is a thing quite !Ai-
,
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pvc‘t under the circtinatancee. The most