The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-01 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, V EDNESDAY, OCT. 1, 1862.

Under the circumstances—the Revenue Returns
for the year, and for the quarter ending yesterday,
are something wonderful. They are, without any
question at all about it, in the highest degree
satisfactory. That is—again we say it—under the
circumstances! When,it is remembered what some
of these circumstances really are, how depressing
they are to a very considerable branch of our
industry—an unavoidable diminution in our impor-
tation of an important raw material, necessitating,
as a matter of course, an extraordinary diminu-
tion in our exportation of those same materials,
when transformed, in the process of manufacturing
—it must be allowed, even by the most synical
alarmists amongst us, that the fluctuations visible
upon these last revenue tables are altogether fall of
hopeful encouragement, are actually, at this mo-
ment (taking the present into consideration for ex-
actly what it is worth, with little more than a
passing thought for the future) in the highest
degree gratifying. It is, certainly, something re-
markable, at the very first glance, to observe that
the returns for the last quarter, under the head of
Customs, have yielded more than they did in
the corresponding quarter of last year by as much
as £210,000. The Excise, it is true, shows aby no
means inconsiderable deficiency; but, again, the
falling off here is attributable not to the situation of
things at home and abroad, and more especially
across the Atlantic during 1862, but to the after
consequences of what may yet therefore be en-
veighed against by some as the temerarous remission
of the paper duties when there was actually no sur-
plus to go upon ! And when, without this important
and, indeed, as it has hitherto been looked upon
by all, essential condition for the remission of any
permanent source of revenue, however small or
comparatively insignificant in itself, we were (as
we still are) spending annually about £70,000,000
sterling !

A little less than that awful round sum of
£70,000,000 we have been spending during the
last two years, ending each of them on
the 30th of September. During 1861 the ex-
penditure of the United Kingdom within the
twelve months, ending on the 30th of September,
was £69,806,160. D •
urmg 1862, for the year end-
lag on the same day of the same month,
that is
yesterday, the expenditure was • a
trifle less than that b
to the returns for theleiaantg £69,685,540. Turning
quarter only, as compared
with the corresponding quarter of last year—we
find that for 1861 the
£14,601,332, while for total revenue was
it has been
£14,600,983. So that the balance has been kept
-up quite marvellously, we repeat,
under the cir-
cumstances. A comparison of the return!,
year and for the quarter in 1861 and 18 for. the
62, Is also
remarkable, as showing that there hasbeena decrease
of £120,620 only upon the year, and a
upon the quarter to the "ridiculouslysmall amount'
of £249. A circumstance, however, this last, de_
monstrat ing how very closely we are hugging the
shore in the midst of the numerous and important
difficulties besetting just now our financial
navigation ! Besides the falling off in the
Excise Returns already mentioned, there is
another falling off yet :to be particularised—viz,,
that arising under the head of the Property and
Income Tar. The difficieney upon the quarter under
the Ercise is greater by about £600,000, it is true,
than the difficiency under the Property Tax—the
latter showing a decrease of £17,000 only, the
former a decrease of £617,000. There, however, in
the mention of these two items, ends the brief cata-
logue of the deteriorations of our revenue returns
for the last quarter. For the last half-year they
show only one item--the falling off to an extent not
f_ar short of a million under the head of the
(i9o2,ooo)—but no falling;
off at all
under the 4E4 Of the Property 'La BeTerting I