The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-06 00:00:00

THE QUARTER'S REVENUE.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—The revenue table which we publish
this morning presents many features upon which the
public, as well as the Chancellor of the Exthequer,
may reasonably congratulate •themselves. After a
year, the former half of which witnessed an immense
change in our commercial policy, and the latter the
operation of one of the greatest calamities of modern
times—an Irish famine and an English scarcity—the
year's accounts of ordinary revenue present an aggre-
gate increase of receipts above those of 1846 of not
less than 2,387,806/. In every department except
the Stamps and Crown Lands—in the Customs, the
Excise, the Taxes, the Property-tax, and the Pcst-
office—there is an increased return. In short, were

it not for Ireland and her Calamity—were it not for
that awful drain which English neglect and Irish
misgovernment have brought upon us—we might
boast that never within human memory, at least, was
re
commerce
eei
ttni
huoanaetgt
either
betteroic
tniefha. a,
ebmvl
rui
sii etnsiopxbeuch
l:
eroat
seqrpdaa
he
munooos
jer tn:emvrieoe:
asfevniitdn a
cei
strange
however—of
removing
e moreindustry
f
presence
reha
eeveoseerrl
nytrhcoaeyuv
burdenar state,goefs o
foreign
huoyrrf
minixtaorerootofonrapwahoiict3h,
and improvidence could have suffered a nation to sub-
sist—our surplus, so far from furnishing means of
relief to the tax-payer, will only by a happy chance
avoid the necessity of new taxation by meeting the
charge for interest on the sum we have just been
compelled to borrow. Cold as the comfort may be, it
is well it will do this, and that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer has not, in a time of much pressure, and
almost general stagnation, to seek out the means of
imposing a new tax as well as contracting a new loan.
On the Customs the increase is most signal. That
after a series of years, each remarkable for some large
reduction in our import duties, each reduction de-
clared to be alike fatal to the home producer and the
revenue, we should be able to show an increase of
1,132,0001. upon the year, is a proof of the soundness
of our new commercial policy, which even its most
ardent advocates could scarcely have anticipated.
Nor has this branch of our income suffered in any
measure during the quarter which has just come to a
close, and during which it has received scarcely any
augmentation from the duties on corn. On the
contrary, the increase has been in a more rapid
proportion, and amounts to nearly half a million.
In the Excise also the increase, quarter by
quarter, has been uninterrupted, until in the aggre-
gate it gives a surplus of 661,5721. above last year's
return. This item has been generally regarded as a
kind of barometer by which to measure the national
prosperity, for as it affects what are principally
luxuries, at least in degree, it is imagined that an
indulgence in excisable commodities betokens a suffi-
ciency of the necessaries of life. As a general rule
this may be a true one, but it is difficult to reconcile
its universal application with the fact that while the
mass of our agricultural population has been debarred
by the high price of food from the purchase even of
their ordinary scanty modicum of luxuries, while
Scotland has suffered severely from actual want, and
Ireland depends for its daily bread on English
bounty, the Excise has gone on increasing, and even
in this last quarter, when the pressure has been most
severe, exhibits a surplus of 26,4071. Under the
head of Property-tax the increase upon the year is
379,8401.—a most satisfactory amount. The Post-
office revenue shows an advance of 1,000/. a week
during the last year ; and that comprehensive term,
" Miscellaneous, ' shows an increase of 129,2731.
On Stamps the deficiency, probably owing to the
partial cessation of railway enterprise, amounts to
32,693/. ; and on Crown Lands, for some reason,
which Lords Lincoln and Morpeth will doubtless be
able to explain, to 18,0001. Upon the total ordinary
revenue, however, we have an increase of 2,387,8061.,
against a falling off in the two branches we have named,
amounting in the whole to only 50,6931. Would that
there were no drawback on this favourable statement
of our financial condition ! Flourishing as the re-
turn appears, however, one item is there to remind
us of our liabilities, and of the heavy charge to which
the great calamity of the year has exposed us. In
the account of Income the receipt of 960,0001. is
acknowledged as the first instalment of the loan of
8,000,0001., which it will require many years of for-
bearance, ear a,
n ce
andn ando
tan
retrenchmentunmeri
unmerited
tod
one, redeem.
a I
systemto l
It is
which
has punish-
ment
oh
iin'
permitted a third of our
population o
utter dependence upon a crop with which
famines are periodical, and without that claim for
subsistence upon the soil which could alone secure
from the rich an interest in the prosperity of the poor.
We have had a severe warning, let us not require a
second.
C I-IR ON IC LE.—The revenue accounts for the
year and the quarter just ended, present at first sight
a much more favourable aspect than they do when
each item is minutely examined, and the peculiar
circumstances which have influenced the various
sources of income are duly considered. On the sur-
face, looking only at the columns under the heads
" increase" and "decrease," the tables present a satis-
factory and encouraging result; and especially in
reference to those items to which we are most accus-
tomed to look as an index of the state of the country,
of its enjoyment of commercial prosperity, and of
social comforts. The Customs receipts for the year
exhibit an increase of no less than 1,132,0021., which
at first sight is more satisfactory, when we remember
that the present return completes the first entire year
under the ultimate reductiots in the tariff effected
by Sir Robert Peel:. On the other hand, however,
than one half of it to
rcement of sugar duties by the
it is impossible to overlook the factth ethlaatsta rgsliaxmeopno
tion of this increase is due, first to the extensive im-
portationthr-
aohrnlydmuroirneg
present Government, at the close of last session. At
a moment like the present, when financial difficulties
and is important to
n 4 l6i
haotnfedn fecodor ensisgei
settlement
l e
mapoprearpeanr;tieularly se when it
and deficiencies upon the general balance of the
of
hf e Be
great and
csroaof a
soundthat purpinctitp, lethoef
taxation. It will be remembered,
which those diffi-
mosource from
de
month of August last year the deliveries of sugar for
consumption on which duty was
pe markinuu dlbti ci eac sat
enu s 3"r
et
Pr
the accountsirs
particular
vcc euc
become
ea;
paid showed a con-
siderable deficiency on those of the preceding year.
But after the reduction of the differential duty
charged on foreign sugars by the Bill of last August,
by which, for the first time, such sugars were really
and practically broultht within the consumers' reach,
the consumption increased so rapidly,
that at the end
of the year the deficit which appeared in the deliveries
converted at the end of
up to August .vasDecember
into a hanisonie surplus. We find, that out of the
increase which is apparent on the Customs' receipts
for the year just ended, amounting in all to 1,132,0021.,
we are indebted to the liberal and wise settlement of
the sugar duties for no less than 739,8841., and in
like manner, of the increase shown upon the last
; to 485,755/., we •
quarter, amounting are indebted to
that measure for no less than 317,466/. It would be
difficult to point to a greater triumph in the result
of any financial principle than has followed the
adoption of a course so long urged by political
economists and free-traders, to rely upon a reduction
of differential and protective duties as the surest