The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The year which opens to-day offers more
than one anxious prospect; but there is one element,
and that, perhaps, the most important, in the posi-
tion of the country with respect to which we need
not entertain the slightest discomfort. The Revenue
continues to develope itself beyond all anticipations.
Our reviews of the Quarterly Returns are neces-
sarily characterised by a most happy monotony.
We never have any other task but that of congra-
tulating the country upon the irrepressible elasticity
of its income. The Return we publish this morn-
ing will probably surprise even the most sanguine
financiers. During the whole of the past year
the Revenue has suffered from very considerable
reductions in taxation. But, notwithstanding, the
receipts for the last quarter are £325,000 in ex-
cess of the corresponding period of last year ; the
receipts of the past nine months show a net increase
of little less than a million 1 • and for the whole year
the net decrease is only R,410,816. The latter result,
as we shall see, is itself sufficiently striking, but the
comparison of the two whole years is somewhat dis-
advantageous to the past 12 months. The large re-
ductions in the Budget of 1865 scarcely exercised
their natural influence during the last nine months
of that year, but inflicted a disproportionate depres-
sion upon the first quarter of 1E66, so that, to form
a strict comparison between the two years, a very
considerable amount of the decrease which is reck-
oned in 1866 should be assigned to 1865. But we
shall better estimate the full significance of this re-
turn for the past 12 months if we compare it with
the corresponding return of two years ago. For the
year ending Dec. 31, 1864, our total receipts were
£70,125,000. In the following spring Mr. Gladstone
introduced the greater part of the reductions which
have been in operation since. The estimated effect
of these reductions was to sacrifice no less than
£5,420,000 of revenue ; and the whole of this loss
was to take effect within two years—that is, before
April next. Last year he again sacrificed £562,000
from the income of the current financial year. By
the reductions of the two years, therefore, he aban-
doned little less than six millions, and there remains
only one quarter more during which the loss is to be
felt. In other words, it might have been estimated
that the revenue of 1864 would be reduced by more
than five millions, at the end of 1866. This would
make an estimated income -for the present year
of about 65 millions. Instead of this it is actu-
ally 681 millions, so that it has recovered to
the extent of 3i millions in two years. It may
be observed that this calculation exactly corre-
sponds with the estimate two years ago by Mr.
Gladstone—that our income is steadily growing at
the rate of about a million and threequarters a year.
If we examine the several items of this increase, the
result appears still more satisfactory. The great de-
velopment which has sufficed to neutralise every ad-
verse influence has appeaeed in the Customs and the
Excise. These items combined exhibit an increase
upon the three months cf £655,000, and upon the
nine months of £1,467,000 ; and, in fact, if this
increase had been maintained, they would alone have
been more than sufficient to provide the annual
growth of a million and three-quarters. The increase
for the year, however, falls to £1,175,000, owing to
the fact, already noticed, that the heaviest loss ex-
perienced from the reduction of the Customs duties
fell upon the March quarter of this year. The de-
crease in the Customs upon that quarter was
£431,000. This, however, was their lowest point
of depression, and since then they have been so
steadily recovering that in the June quarter of this
year they had attained a comparative increase of
£93,000. In the September quarter the increase
was aquarter of a million, and in the present quarter
it is £294,000. In fact, their return for the past
quarter is actually larger than in the corresponding
quarter of 1864, before the great reductions of 1865.
Their present increase is the more gratifying as the
Customs were the taxes chiefly affected by the re-
ductions of the present year. Altogether, in two
years' time, they have recovered a reduction of more
than two millions and a half. But the condition of
the Excise is more extraordinary still. The year
1864 was considered to be peculiarly favourable to
the Excise duties, and when at the end of the year
it was found that they had contributed £19,343,000
to the Exchequer, it was not thought prudent to
anticipate any repetition of such a return ; but in
1865 their return was £19,649,000, and for the
year just past it is no less than £20,616,000. For
the quarter the increase of these duties is
£361,000 ; for the nine months, £828,000 ;
and for the whole year it is nearly a million.
The large increase for the present quarter is
especially remarkable, as the Excise is generally
dependent to a large extent upon the harvest;
and the price of corn, as Mr. Gladstone expressed it
last year, "is a very good inverse test of the
power of the prople to consume those commodities
which yield the principal part of the Revenue." But
the harvest this year has been below the average ;
and the price of wheat,which was 38s sd. per quar-
ter in the autumn of 1864, rose to 445. 10d. in the
same period of 1865, during the past two months it
has rarely been less than 505., and it has now reached
even 60s. and 70s. The Customs and Excise provide
the real substance of our national income, and are the
true tests of its prosperity. The Income-tax, how-
ever, also exhibits a similar development. For ex-
ample, the return for the last quarter of 1864, when
the rate :stood at 6d. in the pound, was £1,580,000.
The rate is now one-third less, which should have
reduced the Revenue to little more than a million,
whereas, in fact, it is £1,314,000. The return
under the head of this tax appears, indeed, more
satisfactory for the quarter than for the nine months
or the year. The decrease for the year, 4145,000,
appears extremely large, but this again is due to the
fact that nearly four-fifths of the total loss for the
financial year 1865-66 fell into the March quar-
ter of the past year. The estimated loss upon this
head of revenue during the current financial year
by Mr. Gladstone's reductions of 1865 was £950,000;
the actual loss for the nine months has nearly reached
this sum, being £932,000. It is satisfactory, there-
fore, to observe that the loss for the present quar-
ter is only £137,000, and we may, perhaps, rea-
sonably hope that the effect of the recent reduc
tion has now been almost exhausted. The onl
other noticeable decrease for either of
the threey periods of comparison is in the item of Stamps.
The reduction of the Fire Insurance Duty affected
at least the second and third quarters of the past
year, but the slight decrease during the present
quarter may, perhap, be ascribed to the general
depression of commercial enterprise at home. There
remains one other point of comparison, which has
a special interest at this season. We have now
passed through nine months of the financial year,
and we may to a considerable extent anticipate the
results with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer
will have to deal in the ensuing Session. For this
purpose it will be convenient to refer to the Esti-
mates made by \lt*. Gladstone in his Budget speech
last year. tie estimated the Customs at
£21,400,000, but this he subsequently reduced by
about £480,000. For the nine months the Cus-
toms have yielded £16,776,000. To this, for the
ensuing three months we may fairly add the average
of the past three quarters, or £5,592,000. This
would make the revenue from Customs for the
year £22,368,000, or nearly a million and a half be-
yond the estimate. The Excise was estimated at
£19,750,000. Ithas already produced £15,135,000,
and by a similar calculation would yield for the
whole year at least £20,180,000. Stamps, which were
estimated at £9,450,000,wi1l show a decrease of two
or three hundred thousand pounds. The Income
Tax was estimated at £5,700,000. It has not at
present reached three-fourths of that sum ; but the
March quarter always exhibits the largest return
from this tax. The Assessed Taxes, which were
estimated at £3,400,000, have already reached
more than three millions, and they have steadily
increased during the year. The Post Office was
estimated to produce £4,450,000, which supposed
au increase during the year of £200,000. For
the nine months its product has increased by
£125,000 ; but the last quarter exhibits a singu-
lar stagnation. Perhaps it has experienced the

same depressing influence as Stamps. The Crown
' Lands and Miscellaneous Items are not likely to
vary materially from the estimate, rand we may
reasonably expect to be within the mark if we
reckon the income of the year at 68 millions. 'Mr.
Gladstone's estimate, after dismissing his proposed
manipulation of the national debt, gave a total for
the year of a little more than 67 millions, so that
the actual revenue may not improbably be a
million in excess of his anticipations. The esti-
mated expenditure for the current year was
£66,225,000. •If our suppositious, therefore,
should be realised, Mr. Disraeli will have to deal
with a surplus of about a million and three-quar-
ters. Whether it will be prudent, in our present
position, to apply this satisfactory balance to the re-
duction of taxation may be a somewhat anxious
question. It will be difficult to avoid some change
in our military system, and we scarcely venture to
hope that the Government will increase the efficiency
of our military and naval
_forces, and at the same
time diminish their expense. But to whatever pur-
pose the money may be applied it is equally agree-
able to know that we commence the year with a
very considerable balance. If additional expendi-
ture should be necessary, our recent policy has
enabled us to undertake it without in any way
augmenting our burdens ; or, if we have more
money than we want, we can still further lighten
a weight of taxation which has already been greatly
reduced.

" THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON COUNT BISMARK.
—Whether by accident or design, a selection from
Count Bismark's political correspondence has ap-
peared at the very moment when he has seized an
opportunity of justifying his policy in a speech to
the Prussian Parliament. Count Bismark is frank-
ness itself, and from these two sources we gain a
very clear and full notion of what he has been aim-
ing at for years, and of the degree in which his
aims have been realised. What he has written, and
what he has said, inspire us with the highest no-
tion of his ability, of his self-reliance, and of his
patriotism. We may also add, that he has had no
scruples whatever, and has gone direct to his goal
without any wavering or any remorse. But he
alone saw what Prussia and Germany wanted, and
how it was to be got. Under colour of being a
rather fanciful Conservative, he was bent on bring-
ing about the most startling changes ; and, if he
has made the Prussian people bow to his will, he
has twisted and turned the King and the aristocracy
quite as freely. For many years he has known
exactly what he wanted. He was bent on doing
three things, and he has done them. He has crushed
out the independence of the minor sovereigns ; he
has thrust Austria out of Germany ; and he has
made Prussia a great compact military Power. His
hatred of the Diet was only exceeded by his hatred
of Austria. He considered that Prussia had al-
lowed herself in 1815 to be placed in a thoroughly
wrong position, and that she had not so used the
advantage which the Zollverein gave her as
to retrieve the mistake. She had permitted.
herself to be included as a humble member in a Fe-
deration where she was thwarted by all the little
potentates whom she could have eaten up in a mo-
ment, and where she was for ever being bullied by
Austria. The first practical step for bettering the
position of Prussia was, he thought, to change the
character of the Zollverein. A commercial union in
which Prussia had to consult the whims of nearly 30
little princes was an absurdity, but a commercial
union in which Frussia should show these little princes
how comfortable it was to be dictated to and man-
aged by Prussia would be a most useful arrange-
ment. But then the princes might naturally object
to such an arrangement. Count Bismark was equal
to the occasion, and with a cynical good nature ex-
plained how they were to be won over. They were
simply to be bribed. They were to have a larger re-
venue secured them in the Zollverein than they could
get outside it. Plenty of loaves and fishes—this was
his recipe for winning over these princes, who seri-
ously believed themselves among the greatest of
earthly beings, and would have been much surprised
to hear how a Prussian nobleman of very inferior
rank and position proposed to manage them. But
managing them was only a secondary object of
Count Bismark's policy. They were but minor
nuisances, and the arch-nuisance was Austria.
The engagement which the King entered into
at Toplitz to support Austria, if attacked in
Lombardy, was very painful to the mind of the
Prussian patriot. It encouraged Austria in that im-
passioned fidgetiness which Count Bismark consi-
dered the mark of herpolicy, and which showed itself
in irritating and vexing the Italians whenever she
dared. We hope these candid expressions will fall
under the eyes of Francis Joseph, and that the un-
happy Emperor will learn a lesson from thinking
what his impassione.l fidgetiness has brought him
to. At last the day came when Count Bismark was
at the head of Prussian affairs, and could begin to
make his dreams areality. The affair of the Duchies
gave him the desired opening, and he set himself
resolutely toget all he could out of them. It was a
very good thing that there should be a noise about
.them. Anything was better than silence, and it was
especially useful—as he expressed himself, with an
irreverent allusion, we fear, to Lord Russell--that
foreign dogs should bark at Holstein. It taught the
world to believe that a good yelping in all kinds of
notes about the Duchies was the natural thing, and
amidst the noise the special bark of Prussia
might make itself heard. Count Bismark talks
of what he did, and thought, and planned
two years ago in exactly the sang calm, in-
different, historical vein in which Napoleon at St.
Helena dictated what he wished to be thought his
reminiscences of a career that was closed for e
ver
He was, he tells us, for getting all that h!could.
little, if lie could only get a little, and a great de a
al,
if a great deal was to be had. If he
possitfbltyhapet wasorin c e
uld,
inhepwu os
sui lel
e, annexhe
wouldthe
set Duchiesn p toan
independent Prussia ;
there under Prussian control; if even this was denied
him, he would at any rate free the inhabitants from
subjection to the Danish Parliament.
AAugtuosnteenhtge
it seemed to him that the Duke e
would be the best card; but the Duke disappointed
him. He was very ill-tempered and very sulky, and
when Count Bismark, on a fine summer's evening,
and in the very pleasantest manner, merely asked
him to give Prussia a part in
The the Duchies, he had
the impudence to refuse. Therefaetwiraysa,s
saysuo dealing
with such a man.
sold himself to the Devil, Bismark, as if he were speaking ofDuFkaeustwhaasvinang
thereeeabletow
tashinnkotuhfinthgetooubte.
Austrian at heart, and so
wd oanr
de
swi
gi tnh
that him.was I tgii
agreeable
the world of his final re-
solve and to remember that it was then stated, with
an air of solemn farce that has never been beaten
in France, that the Prussian lawyers, after having
spent months in examining the Duke's title, had at
length found it to be utterly worthless. But all
this was, in a manner, ancient and forgotten his-
tory to the Prussian Chamber which Count Bismark
was addressing, and which was chiefly anxious to
kb
un
ro
gw hporwu s
si
itah ahnapde ned
agreedthatthatin t h e
the Treaty
of
inhabitantsN i k e
o I s -f
North Schleswig should choose whether they would
go back to Denmark or not. Count Bismark is
no more afraid to tell the truth about events that
happened four months ago than about events that
happened four years ago,- This, he calmly informed
his hearers, was the doing of France. This voting
of the North Schleswigers was a French crotchet,
and it was to be expected that, if France intervened
at all, she should ask that some attention should be
paid to this fancy. It was not what Count Bis-
mark quite liked, but it would have been absurd to
go to war with France about it. Aud, after all, the
crotchet was a tolerably harmless one. The treaty
said that these Schleswigers were to vote, but it
did not say how or when they were to vote.
" I shall take care," added the Count, " that
they do not vote until they are certain to vote quite
" impartially" The last trace of sympathy with the
Evil One at Vienna, and with the minor Augusten-
burg devil, must be eradicated out of their hearts,
and then, in their purified and regenerate state, they
shall be asked whether they really wish to cease to
be Prussian. What we specially like and admire in
Count Bismarck is that, with the one exception of
Austria, whom he hates as he does sin (and we may
be sure he does hate sin, for the Count is a pious
man, and thanks God very properly, in one of his
letters, for having guided him in all his little plans
aright), he can see the bad and good in everything,
and is never one-sided or unjust.

TILE " SPECTATOR" ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF
LONDON.—The Standard published on Christmas
Day a very remarkable paper, which probably was
very little real—an account of thd-reconstruction
of fashionable London, now in progress under the
orders of the Grosvenor family. Owner of the soil
from the west side of Bond-street to Sloane-square,
in Chelsea, of an estate, that is, which includes all
Tyburnia, all Belgravia, and all Pimlico, boasting
the finest and most secure rent-roll in Europe, and
possessed with the passion of business, the Marquis of
Westminster is in his district almost as powerful
as M. Haussmann in the Department of the Seine.
" Landlord of the House of Commons," and with
whole batches of peers among his tenantry, any ap-
plication of his for a private act is sure to meet with
attention, while his right of destruction as ultimate
landlord is, as the leases fall in, more complete than
that of the Parisian prefect. I\l. Haussmann could
not leave great uncovered spaces in Paris, for if he
did the evicted might murmur loudly, and the Em-
peror
.interfere, but the marquis can. He could
within 20 years render West London uninhabitable
by a mere fiat, and it would task the whole power of
Parliament to interfere with his caprice. Fortu-
nately he is a sensible man, who loves his money and
has some great ideas, and he is taking advantage of
the falling-in of his leases to make South-West

London a city worthy of the richest, if not the most
illustrious, aristrocracy in;the world. If the writer
in the Standard is not misinformed, and he mnst
have derived some at least of hs facts from the
ruling architect, for he details plans as yet not com-
menced, the Grosvenors will, before 1880, have
turned a camp of brick and stucco into a city of
Portland stone. As each batch of leases falls in the
houses are to come down, even Grosvenor-square
being doomed, and the leaseholders either rebuild
them on the plan framed by Mr. Cundy and ap-
proved by the marquis, or the landlord does it him-
self. Stucco and sham generally are strictly for-
bidden, and the plan as described seeks a kind of
congruity of stateliness which, unless it is wisely
restricted, may interfere a little too much with
comfort. A city needs buildings others than pa-
laces and stables. The guiding idea of that plan is
to make the Grosvenor estate the residence of the
rich, to cover it with houses which in any other city
would be called palaces, to exclude all meannesses
and ugliness, as well as all sources of disease, and
make of West London the most aristocratic city in
the world. There is nothing whatever to hinder
the realisation of the plan. The Marquis is as rich
as a city himself, the family can afford to spend a
generation or two on their great work, for under
our system a Grosveurr a Grosvenor succeeds, the
list of expectant tenants is endless, and there is n o '
possibility of resistance from without. If the poor
are provided for—which will, we trust, be the case,
the public have no right to complain ; and if they
had, the complaint must be loud indeed which
would induce Parliament to interfere with a great
proprietor's right to do as he will with his own. An
outside observer may think that a system under
which an individual can own a whole city, can
order an entire aristocracy to live in the houses
which seem to him best, can even compel them to
spend a sum of almost national importance, because
he holds certain ideas of architectural propriety, is
not a system calculated to endure. The privileges
of property hold their ground, however, while the
privileges of rank decay ; the Senatorial families
doubled their properties after the Senate had ceased
to reign, and power like that of the Marquis of
Westminister, if only wisely used, may survive our
grandsons, or for that matter, theirs.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

COLCHESTER—DEc. 29.

A very short supply of wheat at market, which sold at
is to 2s per qr advance. Barley in better demand, and at
is more money. Other grain was quiet, with no material
change in value.

Wheat. white Qs 70s Beans, Mazagan......330 40s
red 60s 66s lthddle and small 94s 98s
Barley .... 428 bOs Peas, white 38s 92s
Oats .... —8 - s grey ..36s 92s