The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-12 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER then at a quarter
to six rose to make his financial statement, at which hour
every seat in the body of the House was occupied, except-
ing that of Mr. Disraeli. The right hon. gentleman
commenced his statement by alluding to the original
estimated revenue from the year 69-70, which was
£72,850,000, and then having given the details, he pro-
ceeded to allude to the receipts for the year 1869-70. The
Customs had fallen short of the estimated amount by the
sum of £121,000 ; the Excise had increased by £E63,000;
stamps had also increased by £398,000 ; the Post Office
had fallen short by £210,000; the Crown lands hadreturned
the amount expected. The decrease in the Customs duties
had doubtless fallen cff in consequence of the expectation
of provisions for a free breakfast-table. The amounts
received from tea, coffee, sugar, and molasses had
not been as productive as could be wished,
tea alone shewing a falling off of £140,000. He
had no doubt, however, that after the statement he had
to make that evening that the revenue ordinarily derived
from the sources he had mentioned, would soon recover
itself. The receipts and licenses had proved to be very
productive, as they had already been productive in the
present year to the amount of £1,050,000. Tak-
ing the whole of the income and expenditure into account
the gross income of the year 1869-70 exceeded that of
1868-69 by the sum of £2,742,000, a statement that he
thought must be highly gratifying to the House and
country. One reason of the elasticity of the revenue was
the cheapness of corn, the excess of which he compared
with the previous year. It was expected, as he had said,
to collect, in respect of license duties which were substi-
tuted for assessed taxes this year, £600,000.
They had really collected £1,145,000, and this
had been done without the slightest pressure, and this
fact led him to suppose that the system was not unpopu-
lar. The direct method of paying once for all was more
agreeable and made shorter work. Although they had
not by any means collected all that revenue, it al-
ready exceeded their expectations. No doubt they got the
benefit of what they lost so much by before, deaths,
removals, bankruptcies, and evasions. The estimate for
the whole year was £1,113,000, and it had already pro-
duced £1,145,000. The income, too, had exceeded
the estimate by £684,000. His estimate last
year was that it would yield a revenue of
£3,350,000, whilst the fact was it had yielded £4,484,000.
Coming to the question of expenditure for 1869-70, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer said that at the time of the
financial year he estimated it at £68,223,000, but in
consequence of the charges connected with the
Court of Chancery, the grant was raised to
£68,408,000. The interest on debt was estimated at
£26,700,000, and the estimate had been exceeded by a sum
of £353,000. In respect of charges on the Consolidated
Fund, the estimate was £1,700,000, and that had been
exceeded by £30.000. In the army the estimate was
£14,230,000, and the expenses had been £664,600 less
than the estimate. The expenses for the Navy were esti-
mated at £9,979,000, and they had fallen short of that
sum by £229,000. The Civil Service estimates were
£9,715,000, and they hail fallen short of that sum
by £411,987. The Customs Department was estimated
at £2,363,000; and the expenditure had fallen short of
that sum by £47,000. The packet service estimates
amounted to £1,090,000, _ and the expenses had
been exceeded by £131,000. They had received for
telegraphs £lOO,OOO, and expended £60,000. The result
Ina that the revenue was E7h_sl36.lloll—aucl tha arnAr.M.

PRICE
STAMPED.

~..4d.
...sd.

Lure tot,ool,cutt, leaving a surplus upon tn..
year of £7,807,000. Out of the surplus they
had expended, £4,360,000 in liquidating lia-
bilities incurred in the Abyssinian expedition,
leaving a net surplus of £3,570,000. The claims in respect
of the telegraphs against the Government amounted to
£5,750,000, and of that amount £6,327,000 had been paid.
The money was raised by the creation of stock.
The unfunded debt had fallen to £6,761,000, and a smaller
amount was not within the memoryof man. The public debt
had however been increased by the works going on in fortifi-
cations, and the cost of the Government acquiring the electric
telegraphs, and had it not been for these causes the
reduction of the public debt from the time of the Crimean
war down to the present time, would have been no less
than £60,000,000. The right hon gentleman than pro-
ceeded to allude to the expenditure for the current
year, and compared the present estimates with those
of the preceding year, and stated that the amount esti,
mated for the army was £12,975,000, which shewed a re-
duction of £1,556,000. The navy was estimated at
£9,251,000, which skewed a reduction of £746,000, and,
although the remaining items of expenditure shewed most
favourably in the present year, yet the reductions in the
two great services—the army and navy were the most
The right hon. gentleman then went though
the cstithates for the present year, and said that the
entire result had been to give him a surplus of £4,337,000.
(Hear, hear.) And it _the House_ would accord,him its
attention, he would suggest a plan by which
a little increase could be given to that surplus.
He alluded to the accidents which frequently arose from
the practice of carrying dangerous weapons. The practice
of carrying a gun for the purpose of shooting small birds
was the foundation of poaching. For all the reasons he
had named he proposed a £1 license for enabling
persons to carry fire-arms. This would apply not
only to guns, but to all descriptions of fire-arms.
He proposed to abolish the game license and the
financial effect of the new license would be that
a sum of £150,000 wculd be gained over and above
what was derived from the first-named license.
With regard to the surplus of £4,487,000, he
could not agree with the proposition to apply it to the
reduction of the National Debt. He admitted that it
was their duty to keep an eye on the debt,
and go on gradually reducing it. The idea
of a sinking fund, he believed, had been ex•
ploded, but there was some good in a sinking fund.
He proposed that the Government should become pro-
prietors of its own stock, and convert them into termin-
able annuities. They had seven millions of Post Office
Savings Bank stock, and he proposed to convert
it into annuities terminable in 1885. at the
same time as the twenty-four millions of terminable
annuities created by the First Minister of the Crown:
In the year, 1885 the then Chancellor of
the Exchequer would be in position to make a remission
of income tax to the amount of £3,376,000. He
proposed to appropriate a sum of £190,000
towards the terminable annuities, and that would
leave £4,297,000 to be disposed of as the
House should think fit in the remission -of
taxation. There was another claim upon the revenue.
He had received many applications from the brewers in
different parts of the country on the question
of the brewers' license. They strongly re.
presented to him the unjust charge upon them.
but after mature consideration he was compelled to say
the me.tter must remain where it stood. He then proposed
to remit the duties charged on hawkers, sellers of playing-
cards, soap-makers, paper-makers, watch-case-makers, and
dealers in plate ; to equalise the duties between foreign and
inland bills, and to abolish impressed stamps on newspapers,
substituting for it a postage rate on newspapers of one half-
penny up to six ounces, and for other printed matter of a
halfpenny for every two ounces, and every fraction of two
ou, ces. The combined effect of these two he put at £370,000,
half of which only would come into the present year.
The duty on railways he proposed to equalise at a cost of
£107,000. Atter all these minor remissions, Mr. Lowe
had still between three and four millions to dispose of ;
he then proposed to reduce the Income-tax to 4d., by which
he would sacrifice £1,250,000, and to halve the Sugar Duties,
which would cost £2,350,000. The whole amount of remis-
sions included in the Budget is £3,966,000, which leaves a
surplus of £331,000. Mr. Lowe concluded his speech, which
occupied two hours and a half, by moving the Resolution
relating to the Sugar Duties, which provides that as to
refined sugars the reduction shall not take effect for three
weeks.

The resolutions necessary as the•preliminaries of the bills
required to carry out the proposals of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer were agreed to.

Whoa the House resumed the Lord Advocate obtained
leave to bring in a bill to amend the game laws in England
and Scotland.

Mr. GLADSTONE moved the appointment of a committee
to inquire into the state of the law affecting persons who
had been roportrd guilty of corrupt practices by a commis-
sion, and who are now members of the House.

lfr. J. LoWTHER moved an amendment, seeking to extend
the inquiry to other topics, but the resolution was agreed to
as proposed.

AftOr transacting some other business, the House ad-
journed.

TUE FATAL COLLISION IN THE CHANNEr.

MONDAY.

This afternoon, judgment was given at tk,s Greenwfch
Police-court, in the inquiry as to the circumsta'ces of the
collision between the Normandy and the Mary. The fol-
lowing is a verbatim report of it. " The Normandy,
a paddle-wheel mail steamer of great power in pro-
portion to her tonnage, was proceeding full speed across
the Channel, steering S.W. by S., on her voyage to Jersey,
when the weather, which had previously been fine, sud-
denly became foggy. The officer in charge of the deck
deemed it necessary to send one of " the look-out men "to
call the captain, who was in his cabin. Before the mes-
s3nger returned, a red light was seen about three
p Ants on the starboard how. The helm of
the Normandy was immediately put to starboard
and hard-a-starboard. While this was being done
the masthead light of the approaching steamer
was discovered, and in two and a-half or three minutes
both vessels came into collision. The engines of the Nor-
mandy were not stopped till after the collision occurred.
The Mary was a laden screw steamer of 895 tons and
90 horse power bound up channel, and steer-
ing East by South, half South going dead slow
against the tide at the rate of 2 or '2i knots an hour.
She hadbeen in a fog for some hours, and was so to
speak bringing the fog up with her. Her whistle had
been sounded throughout the night at short inter-
vals. About 3.40 a.m. a steamer's green and mast
head lights were seen about two points on the
port bow, and about three ship's lengths off. Seeing a
collision inevitable, the engines were reversed full speed,
and the helm put hard a port ; but before she had felt the
back stroke and lost her headway, the two ships came
into collision. The effect of the collision was to
stave in the port bow of the Mary, and to carry
her stern-piece over to starboard. The Normandy was
cut down three feet abaft her starboard paddle-bcx, and
shortly after foundered with a deplorable loss of life. On
behalf of the Normandy it is contended that the Mary's
Butand ththereey
is
uduiduuuntoeut
tiukunv oN
mast-head light was not in its proper place,
with respect ctwtoasthe
a Mary'ss t e a mreera.
light being on the Normandy's starboard bow. Therefore,
whether the Mary was a sailing vessel or a steamer
it was equally the bounden duty, under Articles
14 and 15 of the Regulations for Preventing Col-
lisions at Sea, for the Normandy to have kept
out of the way. It is clear from the evidence that both
vessels were in close proximity when they simultaneously
discovered their danger. The Mary was enshrouded in
fog ; the Normandy was just entering it. It is the duty
of the court to notice when it became necessary to
call the captain of the Normandy in consequence
of the fog it was unquestionably the duty of the officer in
charge of the deck to have chewed the signals, and not to
have entered the fog at high speed, and across the track
of both inward and outward bound vessels. That this pre-
caution was not taken is obvious, as it is clearly proved
by the evidence that the engines were not stopped till;
after the collision. Hence the Normandy violated the
15th article of the regulations which enact that ' every
steamship when approaching another ship so as to involve
risk of collision, shall slacken her speed, or, if necessary,.
stop and reverse ; and every steamship shall, when in a'
fog, go at a moderate speed.' After carefully considering
the evidence that has been adduced on this inquiry, the
court is of opinion that the Normandy, by a breach of
the regulations for preventing collisions at sea,
is solely to blame for this disastrous collision.
The court is further of opinion that the master of the
Mary did all that lay in his power to avoid a collision
and to save life, and therefore adjudges that
his certificate be restored to him. The court
cannot pass over without comment the irresolute
conduct of the second mate of the Mary when despatched
by the master to render assistance to the Normandy.
There seems to be no valid reason for his return to his
own ship without carrying out the orders he had
received from his master. Had he obeyed these orders in
the first instance, Lis requested to do by the Crews of the
Normandy's boats—although the Normandy had disap-
peared in. the fog—morelives mijiLltssibly pose have been
saved.'!