The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-04 00:00:00

LAST' NIGHT'S BUDGET DEBATE.

if the unhappy financiers wish to pronounce
funeral orations over ingenious Sinking Funds,
patriotic taxes, or self-imposed economies, we ought
not to grudge them that small consolation. But
That what is to be done 1 is the question. If a
man will exceed his income,eg or muddle his affairs,
aggravates and if calarnity es the consequences of ill
thrift, there is nothing to be done but to make
motters straight and begin again. It is a fatal but
very common error to persevere when the game is
up, and to pursue the course which was once the
best, and is so no more. The position rif the pre-
sentrhancellor of the Exchequer is that of some
professional accountant
of called in to make au im-
mediate settlement embarrassed affairs. We
have no reason to believerthat that Sir G. Lewis would
o
have done worse, our finances were in a
state to demand such interposition. But with war
the
after war, with confessed necessity of more
costly armaments,
with
poses, and with a ne fresh demands for civil pur-
w cabinet every other year, no
Chancellor of the
out anysclemie t
e?! Exchequer can now hope to carry
finance to last longer than a year,
then, i
What,on
new taxese doneb in that year ? He must
either layor continue existing debts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to lay
on two taxes which have the simple effect of
destroying an inequality between England and Ire-
land and a particular exemptiont affecting bankers.
As there does not appear be much difference of
opinion as to this part of the financial scheme, we
may pa9s it. There remains a real bone of conten-
tion in the question whether to
one to keep up the income-
tax or the debt. No
the
ventures absolutely or
unreservedly to propose former course. On
this point Sir G. Lewis, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. T.
Baring, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cardwell,
ardwell, and the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer are all agreed. They have
not the audacity or the heartlessness to tell the
nation, after so many proraises to the contrary,
a
that it must pay 7d. in th
pound income-tax for a
few years longer till all ends meet again.
were any statesman or anyw If there
3tatty in the house who
tendered this council it be worth while to
consider it • but there is not, and the question is
the settled without us. Thus great engine of
financial reform is doomed for ev,'r.
Of course, there is another alternative, which is
conceivable, but no more. We might reducee our
expenditure. On this point, too, as on the i ome-
tax, it may be said that there is a universal agree-
ment.t
Whatever is expressed,there is a unani-
mous feeling that this is not a time
for retrench-
ment, and that no impression can be made on the
' esimates of the year. They walema
usually
yeeatabllke
most of economy assume
necessity, and as if the loss said about it the better.
So we are driven back to the choice between
l
taxes and c ,neinued dent. As to new taxes,n-oolenwe
-
proposes more than has been done. Nobody adds
to the Budget already before the house
certainly is not our place to supply the deficiency
So it
So at length, by an exhaustion of all
canvassed items'
ithems
`gays and.
Means, we come to these much
—the million and a half that were to h
paid to the war sinking fund, and the two millions4l'n
beenhave re-
deemed. Are these operatious to be p
or are we to perform them by borrowing in another
form 7 In fact, nobody proposes to do so. Several
speakers last night, as on previous occasions, ex-
pressed their di-gust at having to give up
these +
uplittle schemes. People do not like to give a long"
.
cherished scheme of saving. But, disgusting
may be to abandon or suspend these two processes a s 1 t
of financial morality, no one really and
advises us to persist in them. No one N v
that responsibility. It comes to this, then,thatatoe
the general moitification of the house, but yet with
its universal consent, it's found necessary to honestlyill t
k
nn
tiuue about three millions and a half of indebted-
ness for one more year at least, with no small
probability of having to do more in this way next
year, and perhaps the year after.--Times.

A SLIGHT MISTAKE.--It would appear that bailiffs,
although generallylooked upon as hard-hearted wretches,
are susceptible of the tender passion. A county court
baila in East Yorkshire was sent to distrain the goods
and chattels of an unfortunate family, but found neither
goods nor chattels in the house. He, therefore, en.
dorsed on the back of the warrant, " No girls to love."
This document coming into the bands of his employer,
not a little xuzzled him. By some clef, in the worthy
functionary's caligraphy, the above reading arose. The
sentence on the back of the summons was intended to be,
"No goods to levy.",