The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-17 00:00:00

£5,850,000. I have no means of stating to the eommittee
what has been the total charge of the war of 1857, because,
although there were certain votes, not amounting to large
sums, taken as votes of credit, yet the main portions of the
expenditure were probably borne upon the estimates under
the ordinary heads of charge; and I have no means now of
separating them from what was duo to the general service
of the country. 'With respect to the raode of provision that
has been adopted by the Government, and proposed tc the
house, in respect to the portion of the charge that was made
known, to the house, and within the knowledge of the Go-
vernment in February, it is as follows;—£8.50,000, as I
have stated, were charged upon the finances of 1859-GO.
Happily the provision made by the house in rest July for
the expenditure of that year was so liberal, that the whole
of that £850,000 has been paid from the proceeds of the
taxes, and not out of temporary resources. It pleased the
house, towards the close of last session, to supply us with
temporary means, in addition to the taxes that were then
voted, by taking up one of the terms of the melt credit.
The proceeds of that operation were somewhere about
-eBOO,OOO or a million, But the revenue of the year was so
productive, that even it' that malt credit had not beer&
granted we should have been able to pay the adtlifienell
charge included in the item on account of China, and, still
have had a surplus. As it was, notwithstanding the consi-
derable addition made at so late a date to the charge of the
year, by taking £350,000 for the malt credit, the surplus of
income over expenditure on the 31st March amounted.to no
less than £1,587,000. Therefore it may be justly said as re-
gards that suns of £850,000, that full provision was Lnade
for it out of the taxes of the country; and the temporary
resource which enabled us to draw an alleviation from the
malt credit, together with £250,000 which came in as a
casual and unexpected payment from Spain, and applicable
to the charges of last year, both contributed to swell that
surplus of £1,250,000, and were, therefore) made applicable,
to the reduction of the debt. With respect to the £1,700,000 which the Government proposed to charge upon the finance, of the present year in February, last the case stood dif-
ferently. I cannot say that we proposed to provide foe more
than about £500,000 of that sum out of the taxes of the
country. For if, on the one hand, we deduot that charge
from the anticipated expenditure of the, country as it then
stood, and if, on the other, we dedNict from the anticipated
revenue of the country, the pioreeeds of the malt and hop
credits and the furthee payment from the Spanish Govern-
ment, the case stands thus—that each of those two sums
very nearly balances the other, the charge for China being
£1,700,000, and the amount of the malt and hop credit, with
the Spanish payment, being about £1,650,000. It follows,
therefore, that the provision made by means of taxation to
meet the expenditure on account of China, accordesehe
plans of the Government as explained in Februa:7ast,
was very little more than the surplus of revenue over ex-
penditure which was then stated upon the estimate, or in
round numbers ablaut half h million of money. So stands
the case as to the pro-vision made for that portion of the
charge for the Cb:lna expedition with regard to which the
houen was ir-vited to take it into its consideration in Fe-
bruary last. I now come to the question how we are to
make provision for the remaining portion of the charge.
The remaining portion of the charge is £3,300,000--the vote
authorised last week being £3,800,000, but £500,000 of that
sum having been included in the financial statement of
February, and in the provision that was then made. I
have therefore to go back to the period of February, as
the basis of calculation of the means by which this sum
is to be provided; and I think there is no reason why
I should depart from the estimates either of revenue
or expenditure that were then made. As respects the re-
venue of the country, estimating it by its proceeds up to
the close of June, I think that, considering its' circumstances,
the condition of that revenue is eminently satisfactory. It
is very difficult—and indeed it would be hazardous—to form
an anticipation of the year's revenue from the revenue of the
quarter, and especially in a year when very considerable
changes, reductions, and commutations, so to call them, of
taxes have been made. But the result of it, I think, entirely
comes up to, and even exceeds the expectations of Govern-
ment. Still I should not recommend the committee, and I
should not think it consistent with the rules of prudence, to
improve upon the estimates of revenue which I ventured to
submit in February. Because there is, in the first place, a
tendency to partial stagnation in some descriptions of in-
dustry, connected either with the actual condition of the
times or with the temper in which men's minds are dis-
posed to view them ; and there is likewise the important ele-
ment of a harvest that must certainly be late, and may too
probably be defective; which, though they might not act
very seriously upon the anticipated amount of the general
income, yet I think would render it unsafe for us to make
those additions to the estimates of February last which
under more favourable circumstances I should not at all
have hesitated or scrupled to recommend. Then, starting
from the estimated revenue of February last, I have now to
state to the committee the manner in which the Government
propose to provide for the charge which has just been voted
by the committee of supply. The total of that charge is
£3,800,000, taking the votes as they stand and have been
sanctioned. ,I first deduct from that amount the sum of
£500,000, which as I have already stated was included in
the provision of February last, and I then come to the ques-
fleet how far the:small surplus, which was then estimated
as likely to arise upon the revenue of the year above the
expenditure, remains still available. That surplus, as was
to be expected in a course of long and detailed financial dis-
cussions, almost of necessity involving a variety of othanges
more or less important, while the measures of the year were
passing through this house, has undergone some vicissitude.
It is not however altogether disposed of. I could not under-
take to enter into very minute details with regard to the
estimates of minor taxes, in respect to which great exacti-
tude and great confidence in each particular are totally im-
practicable, and where the best that can be hoped is, after
using every care and attention, that the general result may
not be far wide of the mark. Proceeding upon that prin-
ciple, I would say that we stand thus with respect to the
surplus that I estimated in February last. It then stood at
the sum of £464,000. But in the estimate for the collectio
of the revenue which was then furnished to me, and which
did not take into eonsideratien the practical effect of some
of the financial measures of the year, particularly of the in-
crease of the income tax, there was an error not immaterial.
That estimate of the expense of the collection of the re-
venue was too low by above £200,000. The committee will
also remember that an important item in the general re-
sults of the revenue was made up of a variety of
new charges that were about to be imposed. In the dis-
cussion,of those new charges, with a view of mitigating
their pressure upon the commercial community, who were
called upon to submit to a number of minor taxes, almost
all of which fell directly upon the profits of trade—with a
view to make those charges as little onerous as possible
various modifications were introduced, which led upon the
whole to a loss, as compared with the estimate I made in.
February, of about£lBo,ooo a-year. Taking together those
two items on the adverse side of the account, they require
us to deduct from the surplus of £464,000 about £400,000.
But on the other side of the acconnt, whereas it was first
proposed that the abolition of the paper duty should take
place from the Ist of July, it was found more convenient,
for several reasons, that it should be postponed to the
15th of August ; and the effect of that postponement
was to relieve the Exchequer by the sum of about
£200,000. Therefore the total lose upon the surplus
estimated in February is about £200,000, after balancing
those various items that I have now mentioned ; and there
remains in fact a sum of about a quarter of a million, or
more—£264,ooo—which is available in part to meet the
charge of the Chinese war. I come then to the proceeds of
the paper duty—assuming that it should be the pleasure of
the house that it be retained throughout the financial year.
(Hear, hear, from the Opposition.) And if that be so, of
course it will make an addition not immaterial to our re-
sources. (Opposition cheers.) The loss estimated to arise
upon the remission of the paper duty as proposed in Feb-
ruary last would have been a million. The loss which would
have arisen in consequence of abandoning that duty, accord-
ing to the terms of the bill which passed through this house,
would have been £BOO,OOO. I cannot say how much of that.
will be recovered in consequence of the rejection of the bill.
I doubt whether the whole of it will be recovered ; but I
think it very possible that £600,000, or perhaps £700,000,
will be recovered. That is upon the presumption that the
duty remains payable to the close of the financial year.
And, therefore, if it is the pleasure of the House of Com-
mons that that duty should continue to be levied through-
out the financial year, a sum of £700,000 in addition to what
I have previously named may be taken as available in part
to meet the charges of the Chinese war. These three items
—£500,000 for the malt credits, £250,000 for the Spanish
payments, and £700,000 in respect of the paper duty—give
a total of £1,464,000, and deducting that amount from the
total which the house has authorised in "mmit
for, to
tsup-
ply, £3,800,000, the sum remaining to be providedee of
r, a
iswhicha sum of
ha 72,
330now6t0o0i.
Then v isum o
t e th e
x 2,6
attention
64
,00fo tohbeeci
ng almirtetadeey,
plrporTeividedous;oyr
will, I believe,
provided for, the sum of £2, 336,000 remains to be provided.
for ; and those two sums takentogether
iothf ththeesutmotal
alwrehaidelly
be found to correspond with
sum of L 1,478,000 has been taken out of
the taxes of the respective financial years ; and a sum of
—ga2,664th,Oeoo—emthmeittee_
£1,186,000, according to the statement made in FebruarYt
and the plan of provision then proposed, would not have
been taken from the taxes of the year, but would/have been
chargeable upon thoso extraordinary resources which the
Government invited the house to call in aid under the
peculiar circumstances of the times. We propose to apply
the same principle of a divided method of provision to the
sum that we still require, which we used in regard to the sum,
with which 'we have already dealt—that is to say, bo ask the
committee to give authority for raising that sum i'a part by
taxation and in part from sources other than taxation. In
so doing we follow the rule which is commonly applicable
to war expenditure. It is the opinion of her Majesty's Go-
vernment that that is the rule which ought justly to be ap-
plied to a case like that of China. First of all, because the
scale of the expenditure is such—especially when it comes
to a mode of charge rapidly growing under other heads--
that the country can hardly be expected to pro vide the
whole from the proceeds of the year's taxes. (Hear.) And
I may, perhaps, say that there is another special
which is certainly applicable to the case, although
4hev
to be assigned to it may be very different in the mindsreasaloun ofe,
different members of the committee. I mean this : that we
have already an outstanding charge of debt due in hard
cash from China to ourselves, and that a furithe): demand