The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-11 00:00:00

4:4;.iwsbe.l

Y'l{ld QUARTER'S REVENUE.

FROM THR MORNING PAPEUS OF THIS DAY.

MES.—The twelvemonth just ended, consti-
g a financial as well as an agricultural year, will
be remembered for the very unfavourable cha-
T of its commercial and physical circumstances.
rexcepting the casuality of a war actually raging
within our borders—a disaster happily now unknown
to these islands—it would be difficult to imagine
events more likely to disturb the operations of the
merchant, and the plans of the financier, than a
fearful deficiency in the food of man, and simulta_
neously an unprecedented increase of that sort of
employment which most draws upon the chief
necessaries of life. Such has been our condition
the last year, and the wonder is that it has not
told with more striking effect on the statement
of the revenue made up to last Saturday night.
The public usually look with some anxiety to the
revenue accounts, as an index to the prosperity of
the country. They expect to read in these figures
the state of our commerce, manufactures, and con-
sumption. The index would be very imperfect if we
did not also read in it the visitations of heaven, and
the madness of man. Accordingly the railway mania,
and the failures of the potato and the cotton crop,
could not but have some effect on the revenue state-
ment which appears in our columns this day. On
the Customs there has been a decrease for the
quarter, compared with the corresponding quarter
last year, of no less than 374,191/. Several circum-
stances however, particularly the receipt of a consi-
derable sum on the importation of corn, raised the
former quarter above its natural average. It
was an extraordinary quarter. The comparison is,
therefore, unfair. Not a sixpence has been received
in the quarter just ended for the importation of grain.
Clearing away those articles which disturb rather
than enter into the comparison, all that can he said of
the quarter just ended is, that it presents no improve-
ment upon the corresponding quarter last year. This,
however, only shows that, from accidental reasons,
there has been no increase in the quantity of articles
liable to duty actually entered for consumption. The
importation and the consumption of sugar, coffee,
cocoa, and foreign spirits have undergone a very
great increase this year, tea alone standing still. On
the whole year just ended, compared with the year
ended October 10, 1846, there has been an increase
of 267,2241. The Excise, as being- less exposed to
the play of mere speculative causes, and as bearing
almost directly upon the consumption of certain
articles of luxury or general utility, is usually con-
sidered the truest barometer of the national pros-
perity. Here there has been a decrease on the quar-
ter, as compared with the same quarter last year, of
no less than 641,9801. Owing to the credit given in
the Excise, the effect on the revenue is always at
least a quarter after the cause. The decrease in
this quarter's Excise, therefore, is owing to a dimi-
nished consumption in the earlier part of the year. In
consequence of the high price of barley, the malt
charged for Excise during the first six months of this
year was less by eight million bushels than during
the same period last year. This alone would make a
difference of about 750,0001. in the Excise ; 500,0001.
of which tells in the present returns, the remainder
being left to the statement that will appear January
5, 1848. There is also a decrease of nearly two
million gallons in the British spirits charged to the
Excise for the same months, rather more than half of
which decrease tells in the present return, to the
amount of 240,000/. The decrease of Excise
from malt and spirits would lead to a still
lar.;er decrease than we find on the quarter.
But there has, on the other hand, been a consider-
able increase in the consumption of bricks,
glass, and some other articles, which has reduced
the decrease to a somewhat less formi.lable figure
than it would otherwise have presented. The decrease
on the whole year is only 159.9141. In the Stamps,
Property-tax, Crown Lands, and " Miscellaneous"
heads we have an aggregate decrease of about 250,0001.
on the quarter. The first of the above probably in-
dicates a decrease of specul ition. The decrease on
the whole year is 1,042.268/. ; and, as the former
Sear enjoyed the benefit of that windfall, the " China
money," to the amount of 968,1031., it may be considered
that the ordinary revenue of the two years ending
respectively October 10, 1846, and October 10, 1847,
are as nearly equal as may be. With regard to the
two quarters ending at those dates, we should be
thought rather bold if we attempted to make out a
shadow of equality between the results, when the de-
crease in the statement is no less than 1,507,2301. If,
however, we deduct from that sum extraordinary items
that do not depend on the fluctuations of trade, the
total decrease is reduced to that we have described on
the Customs and Excise. In both these instances,
the decrease has been referred directly to the high
price of grain, which in the one case compelled a
suspension of the duties imposed by the Corn Impor-
tation Act, and in the other diminished the consump-
tion of malt and spirituous liquors. The decrease on
the quarter's revenue is, then, nothing more or less
than the record of the famine. So far, therefore, and
on the face of this statement, we do not see any cause
for complaint. At least, we see no cause whatever to
doubt the wisdom and necessity of the recent great
commercial reforms. It is evident the general con-
sumption of comforts and luxuries has increased in
spite of a calamity which threatened to preclude
the workman man from any other outlay except
for the mere preservation of his existence. With
the exception—the very serious exception—that the
labourer apparently has been sadly cut down in his
beer, there has been, and is still, a decided increase
in the consumption of comforts and luxuries. It is
by no means our object, however, to hide the dark
side of our affairs, and direct attention to spots of
flattering but deceitful promise. 'We cannot forget
that there are some features in the commercial his-
tory of the year, no longer recorded in the accounts
of the revenue, of a peculiarly inauspicious character.
The immense decrease in the importation of the raw
materials for manufacture, and consequent decrease
now showing itself in our exports, threaten a serious
diminution of the wealth, the credit, and the happi-
ness of the country. Our capital, spent in the una-
voidable purchase of foreign supplies, and in railways
that will not for many years add to our resources,
has been withdrawn to a most alarming extent from
those reproductive investments on which all countries,
and most particularly this, mast depend for the main-
tenance of their ordinary well-being and power.
CHRONICLE.—The decrease on the year amounts
to 1,042,2681., and on the quarter to the large sum
of 1,507,2301. This latter deficiency will be found to
be made up for the most part by the Customs, on
which the falling off is 374,1911.; by the Excise,
641,9801. ; by miscellaneous sums of 104,784/. ; and
by the cessation of the China money payments,
227,644/. On examination we find that nearly a
million of the deficiency upon the year is accounted
for, by the China money being no longer receivable ;
by a large sum for repayment of advances ; and by a
falling off of the items of Excise and miscellaneous
receipts. On the other hand, we have an increase on
the year in the receipts of Customs, Stamps, Taxes,
Property-tax, and Post-office, which last it is satisfac-
tory to observe is steadily increasing in amount. But
the statement as regards the quarter is by no means
so satisfactory. The chief items of decrease are the
Customs and Excise ; the first of which has lost to a
considerable extent by the free importation of grain,
and the latter by the high price of barley, which has
kept the maltsters from the market to wait for better
times and lower prices. The consumption of sugar
in breweries too has probably, (luring the particular
period alluded to, in some degree diminished the re-
ceipts of duty from malt.
HERALD.—It would have been strange, indeed,
if the Revenue for the quarter just closed had not
exhibited some of the results of the pressure which
has been felt in the commercial world for the last six
weeks. We willingly admit that the defalcation is
not larger than might have been expected. The total
decrease of the Revenue for the year ended on Saur-
day last, when compared with that of the previous
year, is 1,042,268/. The total decrease for the quar-
ter,r compared with the corresponding period of last
year,
aounts to 1,507,230/. The decrease in the
Customs
receipts for the quarter is 374,1911.; in the
Excise, 641,b80/ •
; in the Stamps, 66,4191.; in Taxes
there is an in
receipts there is of 3,945/. ;in the Property-tax
a a
decreasered of 53,483/. ; in the Post-
office Department
e account
it is given for the increase of
5,0001.; Crown Lands
and the Miscellaneous
eea decrease of 45,000/. ;
ntexhibits a falling off
which reaches 104,784/.
ounuiticil the present gloom
continue, as some predict,
after Christmas, we
an
may expect to see, in January,account still more
unfavourable than the present. The Whigs seem to be
meeting with their usual luck in financial affairs. That
yanipf our
luck, we mean, which induced one wealth
acquaintance to say, in 1846, " The moment
the Whigs fairly seated in Downing-street, I wroteatwa
my broker, and desired him to sell out every penny I
had in Consols. I alwaye do so. On the other hand,
whenever I see the Whigs turned out, and a Con-
servative Administration taking their places, I in-
stantly buy in. I find this so infallible a rule, that I
never hesitate. It always answers." In the present
case, however, should matters so turn out, and should
the Whigs succumb at last, as in 1841, to financial
difficulties, their fate will be richly deserved, for their
folly will have been of the most gratuitous kind.
They will sacrifice their prospects, not by a resolute
adherence to their own policy, but by their perti-
nacity in clinging to the nostrums of their antagonist.
The currency fancies of Sir Robert Peel, which they
might have allowed to rest as a dead weight on his
own shoulders, have been preposterously taken up by
them, and thus they will suffer martyrdom for an-
other man's heresy! Surely they will obtain no pity,
as they will deserve none! Why cannot they discern
so plain a proposition as this ;—that the mercantile
firm, or the nation, which eagerly endeavours
to
oincrease its trading concerns, and yet binds
up all the while its pecuniary means in an un-
natural and absurd constraint, is sure to meet
with frequent and serious calamities. To en-