The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-06 00:00:00

• -
rill! QUARTER'S, REVENUE.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
When Sir Robert Peel brought forward his budget on the
14th of February, 1845, he submitted estimates of the reve-
nue which he expected for the year commencing on the sth
of April, 1845, and ending on the sth of April, 1846. The
accounts fer that year are now before us. They prove in the
main the correctness of Sir Robert Peel's anticipations, and
the soundness of the policy which he then developed. But
they also exhibit traces not to be mistaken of the commer-
cial stagnation from which the country has for some time
suffered. Sir Robert Peel's plan involved a reduction in the
Customs duty of 2,418,000/. The actual loss upon the Cus-
toms is 2,512,113/. The expected changes in the tariff
have prevented the liberation from bond of a large amount
of imported articles. But for this circumstance it can-
'lot be doubted that the loss upon the Customs would have
fallen short of the estimate. The power of the revenue to
recover itself after reductions appears in the fact that,
whereas the less on the year is upwards of two millions and
a half, the loss upon the quarter is only 440,588!., or not
much more than one-sixth of that amount. The Excise,
upon which a loss of about 900,000/. was estimated, shows in
fact a decrease of little more than a third of that amount, or
338,822!., and of this nearly the whole belongs to the quarter
just ended, which, as compared with the corresponding
quarter in last year, sl.ows a decrease of 291,027/. After
making full allowance for the fact that duties on glass and
auctions continued to be received during a portion of the
first quarter of last year, there will still remain a large deficit
in this important branch of the revenue, of which the chief
cause must be diminished consumption. There is in stamps an
increase upon the year of 380,6811., but a decrease upon the
quarter of 56,590/.—a proof of the severe check which com-
mercial operations have lately received. Taxes show an in-
crease upon the year of 6,291/., and the income-tax a de-
crease of 19,7071. Upon the quarter there is an increase in
the returns of the income-tax of 53,171/. The only feature
in the accounts which remains to be noticed is the Post-
office revenue, which still advances. The return for the year
just ended shows, under this head, a total of 768,000/. This
is an increase of 89,0001. upon the year, and, what is still
better, an increase upon the quarter of 37,000/. There can-
not be a more striking proof than is afforded by the steady
increase of the Post-office revenue of the value of bold and
judicious financial reductions. The produce of all other
taxes varies from time to time ; but the penny postage is
more productive from year to year, and from month to
month. The Exchequer thus gains continually; but
a still greater gain is reaped by the public in increased
convenience and facility of communication.
(From the Times.)
In estimating the finances of the empire at this moment,
when the customary termination of the financial year has
arrived, the inevitable stagnation of trade, consequent upon
the suspended condition of the corn-laws, and of the many
articles included in the tariff, was of course to be borne in
leind. This paralysing ingredient has entered into the
material of commerce fir more than three months, and we
had to expect, therefore, as we anticipated on Saturday, a
deficiency in those items which, in the quarter's revenue,
represent generally the prosperity of the country. The
Customs accordingly show a decrease in the quarter of near
half-a-million ; and in the whole year of near two millions
and a half. The Excise shows a similar deficiency of about
300,000/. on the year, and aliout 340,0001. on the quarter.
Against this may be set an increase of near 400,0001. in the
Stamps, and about 90,000/. in the Post-office, both which items
may be placed to the account of the railway mania. On the
total ordinary revenue there is a decrease for the quarter of a
million, for the year of two millions and a half; on the total
income, 1,100,0001. for the quarter, and 2,327,000/. for the
year. Of the last-mentioned sum about 300,0001. is merely
incidental, which, being deducted, leaves an actual decrease
of a little more than two millions. These figures, however,
exhibit merely the positive amount of receipts in the quarter
and year ending the sth of April, 1845, as compared with the
like period in 1846, The former year was one of unexampled
prosperity, great commercial activity, and unprecedented spe-
culation. The present year, although it shows less of these signs
of advancement, is nevertheless remarkable for that which is,
after all, the true index of national prosperity—an excess
of income over expenditure. This excess for the present
year is about two millions and a half. It would he super-
fluous to particularise the many important reductions that
were made in the Customs' duties in the years 1844 and 1845.
Those of 1844 were but imperfectly developed in 1845, and
both have produced more or less effect upon the results of
1846. The bold experiment of Sir Robert Peel has hardly
yet received a proper trial. Great changes, of course, require
a lengthened period to develope themselves, and it cannot be
denied that the lapsed interval has been both naturally and
politically unfavourable to financial prosperity. It would be
equally superfluous to mention in detail the petitions lately
presented to the House of Commons from the great com-
mercial cities of England and Scotland for a proof of the in-
jurious effect which the uncertain state of the Customs'
department has exercised upon the relations of trade
during the last few months. These, which are by far
the most active months of the year in all departments
of commerce, have been rendered flat and dull by the pro-
tracted decision of the House of Commons on the great
question which now agitates the empire. There is ample
evidence in the shape of trading circulars and petitions and
Parliamentary papers, that the greatest injury has been in-
flicted upon the ordinary transactions of commerce by the
stadium immune toquendi that has seized upon the chartered
legislators of the lower House. These gentlemen may con-
gratulate themselves upon having put a drag upon the
wheels of trade, and stayed the progress of the state machine.
If they can find any satisfaction in this reflection, no one, we
think, will be found to interfere with their perfect enjoy-
ment of it. But, with a view to check their pride, we must
remind them that their powor is limited to a temporary
check. The progress of improvement will go on in spite of
them, and the next quarter will probably evince, by a
sudden reaction, that the protectionist ris inertce is but a mo-
mentary gravitation, and that the onward impulse of nationa
prosperity is happily far superior to their powers of ob.
struction.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The accounts of the Revenue, for the year arid quarter
ending yesterday, have been made up. The exposition is a
discouraging one, and it proves that Sir Robert Peel's newly--
adopted Whig-Radical and free-trade policy must be followed
by the same results that attended the adhesion to the same
policy by his Whig-Radical and free-trade predecessors.
The total decrease of revenue upon the year is no less than
two millions three hundred and twenty-seven thousand
pounds sterling. In the Customs the decrease is more than
two millions and a half ; in the Excise 338,822'. These two
items would by themselves account for more than the aggre-
gate decrease but that they are in part balanced by a casual
payment of about three quarters of a million of ransom money
from China. It has been stated, indeed, that the decrease
in the Customs is to be accounted for by the antici-
pated reduction of duties on imports, from Sir Robert Peel's
free-trade measures, but the returns will not bear out this
solution ; for the decrease is least in the last quarter, when,
only, the free- trade measures could be anticipated. In the
last qaarter it amounts to no more than 440,5881. In that
quarter there is, however, a fearful decrease upon the more
important domestic sources of revenue ; beginning with the
Excise, which presents a decrease on the quarter of no less
than two hundred and ninety-one thousand pounds, the in-
dex to a future annual decrease of greatly more than one
million sterling. The last year, too (the Premier has boasted
of it), has been a year of unexampled manufacturing pros-
perity, with this result, that there has been a decrease in the
property and income tax, though a small one. Now this de-
crease, whatever its amount, proves one of two things—viz.,
either the manufacturers who talk of having doubled their
capital within the year, have made false returns to
the Property and Income-tax commiseioners,—or the other
payers of property and income-tax have lost in the year as
much as the manufacturers have gained. There is no escape
from this dilemma. Thanks, however, to the property and
income-tax, and to the Chinese indemnity, :there is still a
surplus of income above expenditure. But for the property
and income-tax, and the Chinese indemnity, this surplus
would be a deficiency—a deficiency as great as any that oc-
curred during Lord Monteagle's or Mr. F. Baring's ad-
ministration of the Exchequer. The country must therefore
content itself with the consolatory assuraece that, if the free-
trade policy is to be persevered in, the property and
income-tax are rivetted on it for ever rivetted on it
with a certainty of enormous au,gmentation. Let
not men deceive themselves.
in 1122 (when the policyfree-tradel
was sn
introduced
de
b):No
3v
r.
liuskisson) were able to
a', without inconvenience, sixty-
four millions in taxes upon consumption,lio are now able to pay
but forty five or forty-six
1822 we made the foreigner Why ? Because before
PaYls,v;irr labour—because now
the foreie-ner and the millowner
deectelle fruit of our labour
betweenqhem. Let not men, then, themselves with
these facts before them, or complain that' deceive
ceivesthem ; Sir Robert Peel can now deceiveßobert Peel de-
he said lust year that the property and income-tax no man. True,
terminate wills
1841 ; but, look to the revenueotne-tax should
returns, and
look to his free-trade projects, and there see the terms f his
next proposition—for a renewal, aye, and a large augmenta-
tion of the property and income-tax. These terms are
ex-
pressed in a familiar and even vulgar_ phrase— "No compul-
sion, only you must." Sir Robert Peel makes the renewal
and aggravation of the property and income-tax indispen-
sable to obviate a national bankruptcy. We may all now see
the trick.
(From the Post.)
The statement of the quarter's revenue, made up to Satur-
day night, has
just
been officially issued. We regret to say
that the result is a deficiency, as compared with the cor-
responding quarter of last year, to no less an amount than
1,121,5041. It is probable that on another occasion we shall
discuss these returns in reference to the causes that may
have Ad to the deficit, and the prospect that it holds out;
but we cannot allow the present opportunity to pass with-
out protesting against the obvious unfairness of a Govern-
ment article put forth on Saturday in the columns of a
morning Contemporary, by way of anticipation of the
official statement. We can see the convenience of break-
ing a fall—of letting down as easily us possible a
Cabinet, of which the chief merit in `public estimation had
hitherto been, that it possessed the faculty of making the
income of the country equal at least to its expenditure; we
cannot, however, understand that the most honest way of
concealing a large deficiency is artfully to mix up "Receipt
and Expenditure" with "'Revenue" merely, and thus to
convey an impression that the falling off in the latter is
merged in the surplus of the former. The melancholy truth
for the public to look to is, that the quarter just completed
has produced less by above a million sterling than did the
corresponding quarter of last year. and that a lartge item of
the deficiency is one that implies a diminished consumption
of the comfnrts of life by the industrious classes of the com-
munity.

(From the Advertiser.)
We publish, in another part of our paper, the revenue re-
turns fur the quarter and year ending April sth, 1846. Our
readers will see with regret, but not with surprise, that
there is on the year, as compared with the
veer ending sth
April, 1845, a defalcation to the extent of
2,32;,2191.; and
en the quarter, as compared with the corresponding quarter
of last yea; a decrease of 1,121,5041. Here, then, we have
the natural results of that stagnation of trade, which has
been produced by the factious opposition to the free-trade
ineasuresof Sir Robert Peel. No better proof could be given
of this, than is afforded by the fact, that the two branches of
the revenue—the Customs and Excise—which constitute the
best test of the trade of the countr, and the condition of the
people, are those in which the greatest falling off has taken
pr people, Tr deficiency in the Customs, on the veer, is
2.512,1131.; and on the quarter, as compared with the cor-
respondirg quarter of last year, of 4405881. The defalcation
in the Excise on the year is 338,8221., and on the uarter
291,027/. We trust that the state of the revenue willq not be
on those who have hitherto so pertinaciously opposed the
lost
Government measures.
llf they persevere in their present
they will not on y seriously embarrass the financial
course,
affairs of the country, but they will put in imminent peril in-
stitutions of the realm, which, of all others, they are most
anxious to see preserved
• • •
(Froth the Daily News.)

The stagnation of trade throughout tfis country by
the
uncertainty which attends the fate of the measures no
fore Parliament affecting commercial operations, ha:pro-
duced the usual effect upon the revenue of the quarter just
closed. The real value of the indications of national de-
pression gathered from these accounts, is, however, not to
be fairly estimated, till we take into account on the one
hand the effect on the revenue of the recent repeal of cer-
tain duties, and on the other the rapidly advancing pros-
perity of our manufactures and commerce down to the
closing months of the last year. Something is to be allowed
for VAIN9II of r9youg9 relinqui4be4, before we can Mato the

net results of Parliamentary delay and commercial depres-
sion in the diminution of the national income. It is neces-
sary to observe that an allowance must be made also for an
extraordinary iocrease which took place in the quarter
ending 10th October, 1844, in the amount ofCustoms duties
paid upon corn, wine, and one or two other articles, which
added nearly 500,000/. to the revenue, as compared with that
of the same quarter of 1843; and also for the circumstance
that the October quarter is uniformly the heaviest one of
the year. After allowing for these circumstances, it
will be seen that the decrease upon the April quarter is very
much greater in proportion than on any of the three pre-
ceding. And if we also take into consideration the fact that
during one-half of the April quarter of last year, the same
duties were virtually in operation as in the same quarter of
this year, the decrease of revenue in the latter becomes still
more striking. In short, the diminution of the revenue from
Customs and Excise, in the first three months of 1846, as
compared with the same period of 1845, if taken as indicating
the diminished rate of consumption per head of the articles
taxed, and with regard therefore to the increase of population
in the interval, cannot be estimated at less than 700,0001., or
from ten to fifteen per cent. And this is precisely what
might have been anticipated. A more than corresponding
diminution has undoubtedly taken place in the average
earnings of the manufacturing population, from the relaxed
state of trade; and neither wages nor profits have furnished
to the people nearly the same means of purchasing articles
taxed to the Customs and Excise, since all commercial ope-
rations of any magnitude were suspended, some three months
ago, in anticipation of the measures which are still held in
doubtful suspense by the Legislature.

COMMERCIAL NEWS.
(From 7Villmer and Snath'b European Times)
The commercial accounts from all parts of the country are
desponding and gloomy. With the solitary exception of the
iron trade, in which great activity prevails, owing to tem-
porary causes, there is not a branch of manufacturing in-
dustry which is not suffering more or less under paralysis.
In many of the manufacturing towns there are thousands of
workmen out of employment ; the markets for all descrip-
tions of produce are in a state of stagnation; stocks are
daily on the increase, with sinking prices and a diminishing
consumption ; and, in short, a condition of things exist
which threatens to suspend all the ordinary functions of
commercial and manufacturing industry.
It is hardly neccessary to state that this depression, which
every week renders more galling and ruinous, has its primary
origin in the uncertainty which still hangs about the fate of
the tariff. Other causes, undoubtedly, contribute to fetter
the wheels of trade, but the great impediment is the one at
which we have glanced. A panic appears to be impending.
The despondency is daily on the increase; and many per-
sons in business, influenced probably by their fears, labour
under the impression that the measure will yet be strangled
in one or the other House of Parliament. So potent is this
prestige of evil, that Sir Robert Peel, on the evening of Wed-
nesday last, felt bound to renew the assurance of his desire
to carry out his commercial policy with the least possible
delay. We have alluded more in detail to the subject in
another column, and we notice it here for the purpose of in-
dicating what we sincerely believe to be a groundless appre-
hension, and to point out, at the same time, its blighting ef-
fect on every description of business.
In order to give as much freedom as possible to the opera-
tions of the commercial world, under existing circumstances,
Ministers, as most of our readers know, issued recently a
Treasury older for the payment of the reduced duties, the
parties giving a bond that, if the Peers threw out the Bill,
the old scale of duties would be paid. This was a wise and
a liberal move in the right direction, and advantage to some
extent has been taken of it. But the risk involved has been
too great to allow its general adoption. The public have
derived little or no benefit from the arrangement ; for the in-
ducement to increased consumption has been neutralised, by
the retail price of the various articles being little below their
former level. Indeed, all such temporary expedients par-
take of the character of gambling—speculation is, perhaps,
a more legitimate phrase. For the risk encountered, the
profit must be correspondingly heavy.
The gloom which hangs over business has ,been gradually
deepening during the last six weeks—the last fortnight being
the darkest of all. Under the mod favourable circumstance,
there seems ,little chance of seeing the new tariff on the
statute-book before the end of May ; and it will be at least
the middle of that month before the critical stage—the
second reading—can have passed the upper branch of the
Legislature. If, unhappily, the measure should be thrown
out, the summer will be consumed in the turmoil of a general
election, and autumn will hardly see the new Parliament
assembled. Then the war of words will recommence, em-
bittered by disappointed hopes and individual suffering;
and even supposing the free traders to have a majority,
their policy cannot come into play before the end of the
present or the commencement of the following year. But
if, on the contrary, a Protectionist Ministry is formed,
and attempts to govern the country, the battle will
be still further prolonged, and the intensity of commercial
and national sufferings fearfully increased. While we hope
for the best, it is just as well to glance at the dark—at the
worst side of the picture ' • and his must indeed be a bold
he irt that can, without shuddering at the temerity, be a
party to convulsing this great commercial nation by
a struggle so intense, that all the elements of society would
stand a chance of being reduced to their chaotic condition.
The stoutest hearse may stand appalled, when it contemplates
the consequences which must inevitably result from the re-
jection of a policy, to which every man in the kingdom, who
has the least pretensions to the character of a practical
statesman, is irrovocably wedded ; a policy which is opposed
solely by the heavy country squires; by a sporting lord or
two, whose knowledge of arithmetic is confined to " making
a book" at Newmarket and Epsom ; and by a flashy orator,
clever at rounding a period, and manufacturing excitable
works of fiction, whose dreamy enthusiasm scorns all ap-
proach to the practical.
An important trial took place at Exeter lately, in which
the directors of a projected railway brought an action
against a party to whom, on his own application, they had
allotted a number of shares. The allottee refused to take
up the shares or pay the original deposit, which amounted
to some 21. or 3/. per share. As the company had con-
tracted engagements, they offered to compromise the affair
on payment of 3s. per share. The party refused, the action
was brought, and the jury gave the directors a verdict for
the full amount of the shares. This decision has spread uni-
versal consternation, for thousands upon thousands of parties,
suspended between respectability and ruin, are in the position
of the defendant in this action. Like rats in a cage, they
are preying upon and devouring each other.
While upon the subject of railways, we may be permitted,
en passant, to glance at those connecting. the British pro-
vinces with the United States, respecting which a consider-
able interest is felt by many persons on this side of the
water. We regret to find, in our advices by the last arrival
from Halifax, that the war of words had been raging in the
House of Assembly at Halifax, N.S., on the subject of the
projected line of railway from that city to Quebec and
Montreal. We fancy these differences arise out of political
feelings, which, in such matters, should not be allowed to
interfere. Our Nova Scotia friends must settle their dif-
ferences soon, or we shall be travelling to Montreal, vid
Boston, Fitchburg, Hartford, Montpellier, Burlington, and
St. Johns; and by a branch from Burlington to Kingston
anti Toronto, rid Plattsburgh and Odensburgh. We under-
stand, from a letter just received from a Boston friend,
actively engaged in that undertaking, that great progress is
making with this line of railway.
We have more than once recently referred to the popularity
which Indian Corn, as an article of food, is attaining in this
country. It will prove, ere long, a valuable export. The
Government is most anxious that it should supersede, to a
great extent, the potato amongst the labouring poor, and the
recent scarcity of that esculent is favourable to its introduc-
tion. Cargoes of Indian Corn are daily reaching the British
ports from the United States, and large quantities have been
released from bond, duty free, under the Treasury order
already mentioned. Shops for its exclusive retail sale are
being opened in many of the large towns, and the American
mode of using it is generally adopted.
The Corn market, pending the discussions of the Govern-
ment scheme, is, like all the Produce markets, in a complete
state of stagnation. Prices vary but little, and parties merely
purchase front hand to mouth to satisfy their immediate require-
ments. The generul belief is, that if the measure is passed the
article will rise in value, but to this doctrine there are,
of course, some dissentients. Lord G. Bentinck pressed Sir
R. Peel, some time ago, to fix the price of corn under the
operation of his new scheme, but the speculations of the
Premier, on this head, having been falsified by facts, he was
naturally unwilling to commit himself by another guess.
But what the Minister declined to do has been done by an
authority which stands high in the estimation of the agri-
culturists. That authority is the Mark Lane Express. The
publication to which we refer declares emphatically, that
under the new arrangement the price of corn will oscillate
between 455. and 48s. per quarter. Without entering into
the minutia of the question, we may observe, that if this
calculation prove accurate, it will leave an ample margin for
the profit of the United States' and Canadian exporters. But
the British farmers are getting.up the steam in the race of
competition, and every improvement in tilling, draining, and
the
most scientific application of capital is being pressed into
year
their service.
Our Bamberg correspondent, under date of the 28th ult.,
have says, the .
gratiboeneafroNm,er3, Germanygregreat,
i if it
thhaedUnnotitbedeeSnt States thishe
Oregon question
woulde
question deters many from going, as they fear a war.
The uncertainty about the new tariff in the United States
duties
Prevents goods
going forward, and will greatly lessen
the receipt of in the United States for the first half of
this year, so that the apprehension of war is almost as bad as
war itself. There is a
is very probable thisyincree duties on American tobacco, and it
in-
creasing considerably
Government refuse to ratify the
that the Zollverein intend
will take place if the Amercian
graineof the Zollyerein treaty. The
price of wheat andof
yvery kind is falling in Germany,
as there is every prospect large crops this season.

BRICKLAYERSofte STRIKE
I
THE t
is
expected
that the ;nen
BinuINGIIAM, SATURDAY. —lt
trade, in
cslgendadvance
engaged the various branches
this town, will very soon be all out on strikneilgairnn
have struckan
of wages. The bricklayers have already
vance of 3s. per week, and most of themoad- ;
The strike is said to be the result of an understanding wm'riktl.l
the men in other parti of the country. It seems that there
has been a considerable demand for men at the Birkenhead
works and Manchester, and that this demand has led to an
inducement on the part of the general committee of the build-
ing trade to effect an advance of wages throughout the king-
dom. The master builders held a numerous meeting of their
body on Thursday night, at the Acorn Inn, Temple-street, in
this town, for the purpose of considering the demands of the
bricklayers. Mr. W. Smith having been called to the chair,
and the notice convening the meeting read by Mr. J. Davis,
secretary, the assembly was addressed by several masters,
all of whom concurred in describing the present eemand as
unreasonable, and greater than the present contracts would
enable the masters to give. It was stated that there was at
present a great scarcity of bricks, owing to the fact that
there were only three pieces of ground in the borough from
whence bricks could be obtained, and that the works of the
new gaol were partly stopped for want of this portion of the
materials. In addition to the above reasons, it was stated
that there were only three works of any importance in course '
of erection in the town, namely, that of the Norwich Union
Office in the Temple, the new gaol, and the intended erection
at the corner of Temple-street, New-street, by Mr. Beilby,
stationer. It was eventually resolved that the present de-
. mands made by the bricklayers are greater than the price of
provisions or the state of trade warrant, but that the builders
composing this meeting are willing to advance the brick-
; layers one shilling per week upon their present rate of wages,
t on condition that they comply with this offer on or before
1 Monday next, the 6th instant. Thanks having been given
- to the chairman, the meeting separated at ten o'clock.

FILL OF A RAILWAY BRIDGE.—On Tuesday morn-
ing last, about six o'clock, the principal pillar of the stone bridge
across the Caldew, near the Long Island, belonging to the Newcas-
tle and Carlisle Railway, and which leads to the Canal Basin, gave
way, sinking nearly two feet—the centre arch and roadway sinking
to the same extent. The foundation was raised upon piles, which
had probably not been driven " home " to the rock, and the gravel
having been washed from beneath, the fall became inevitable. The
bridge will have to be entirely taken down ; but by using a tempo-
rary railway fixed upon planks, the coal waggons have been passed
across with but little interruption ; and thus the business of the
canal has been but little impeded.—Carlisle Journal.
The priz,; of 501. offered by
the Royal Agricultural
Society for the best report on the farming of Cambridgeshire, has been
awarded to %%rout %Irmo Esq Ickleton, near Saffron Wald 46.—
Zing #ffindar4.