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

THE 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 for 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 2,512,1131. 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-
not 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 loss on the year is upwards of two millions and
a half, the loss upon the quarter is only 440,5881., or not
much more tnan one-sixth of that amount. The Excise,
upon which a loss of about 900,0001. was estimated, shows in
fact a decrease of little more than a third of that amount, or
338,8221., 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 880,6811., but a decrease upon the
quarter of 56,5901.—a proof of the severe check which com-
mercial operations have lately received. Taxes show an in-
crease upon the year of 6,2911., 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 53,1711. The only feature
in the accounts which remains to be noticed is the Post-
office revenue, which still advances. The return for the
,ye.4F
just ended shows, under this head, a total of 768,000/. fins
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
enlnd. This paralysing ingredient has entered into the
material of commerce for 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 &mut 340,000/. on the quarter.
Against this may be set an increase of near 400,0001. in the
Stamps, and about 90,0001. in the Post-office, both which items
'nay be placed to the account of the railway mania. On the
total ordinary revenue there is a decrease fur 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 ste-
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 be 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, anti 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
studium immane loguendi that has seized upon the chartered
legislators of the lower House. These gentlemen may con-
gratulate themselves upon having pat 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 vis inertce is but a mo-
mentarygravitation, and that the onward impulse of national
prosperity is happily far superior to their powers of ob-
struction.

• (From the Morning Herald)
The accounts of the Revenue, for the year and 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 he accounted for by the antici-
pated reduction of duties on imports, from Sir Robert Peel's
free-trade measures, but the returns will riot 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 wider 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 commissioners,—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 assurance 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
theenmosrei?‘ous augmentation, Let
not men deceive
in 1122 (when the free-tre.ile 'es.
Ths people who
Huskissoo) were able to
pay,
without
was introduced by Mr.
tu_t inconvenience, sixty-
four millions in taxes uponinc,iinusourmisp izare now able to pay
but forty five or forty-six
1822 we made the foreigner pay fur our db? Because before
because now
the foreigner and the millowner dividdeectehhe,e;ruturFteot our labour
between them. Let not men, then,
these facts before them, or complain that Sir 11.1astethiP with
ceives them ; Sir Robert Peel can now deceive no man.ee'll2rduee, he said last year that the property and income-tax should
terminate with 1848; but, look to the revenue returns, and
look to his free-trade projects, and there see the terms of his
next proposition—for a renewal, aye, and a large augmenta-
lion 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 Pei 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
1,121,5044 it is probable that on another occasion we shall
discuss these returns in reference to the causes that may
have led 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 as 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 dtticincy is artfully to mix up Receipt
and Expenditure" with "Revenue" merely, and thus to
convey an impreskion that the falling oil' in the latter is
merged in the s-Arplus of the former. The melancholy truth
for the public *.O look to is, that the quarter just contr;leted
bas produced. less by above a million sterling than did the
tcorereasepfionci
.inatiart is d,.ng quarter of last year. and tht a large item of
of the C one that implies a diminished consumption
s of life by the industrious classes of the com-
munit

• (From the Advertiser.)
We publish, in another part of our paper, the revenue re--
terns fur the quarter and year ending April sth, 1846. Our
readers will see with regret, but nut with surprise, that
there is on the year, as compared with the year ending sth
April, 1845, a defalcation to the extent of 2,327,219/. ; and
en the quarter, as compared with the corresponding quarter
of last year, a decrease of 1,121,504/. Here, then, we have
the natural results of that stagnation of trade, which has
been produced by the factious opposition to the free-trade
measures of Sir Robert Peel. • No better proof could be given
of this, than is afferded by the fact, that the two branches of
the revenue—the Customs and Excise—which constitute the
best test of the trade of the country, and the condition of the
people, are those in which the greatest falling off has taken
place. The deficiency in the Customs, on the veer, is
2,512,1131- ; and on the quarter, as compared with tie cor
responding quarter of le.st year, of 440 588/. The defalcation
in the Excise on the year is 338,822 Z, and on the quarter
291,0271. We trust tb at the state of the revenue will not be
lost en those who bavt3 hitherto so pertinaciously opposed the
Government measura i. If they persevere in their present
seriously embarrass the financial
course, they will not only
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
(From the Daily News.)
The stagnation of trade throughout the country by the
uncertainty which. attends the fate of the measures now Le-
fore Parliament affecting commercial operations, has -
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
heed the effect o a till we take into account on the one
the revenue of the recent repeal of cer-
taiu duties, and on the other the rapidly advancing pros-
pert!,3- of our taanufa:tures and commerce down to the
ct9lorsknionths of the last year. Something is to be allowed
"I 94 ceTtiili, ZOliAcillikkedt Wm we sew NMI ils