The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-24 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1868.

It must be admitted that Mr. Hun has not been
fortunate in his first venture as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and every one must sympathise with
him in his ill-luck at having a deficiency to make
up instead of a surplus to dispose of. At any rate
he has made the best of the thing so far as he could.
He had not the excited auditory, the crowded
house, and the other agencies which ordinarily ren-
der the occasion of a Budget the scene of so much
excitement and such eager anticipation. People are
not in a very great hurry to hear bad news, or, at
least, what is not pleasant, and it was found so on
the occasion referred to. On the whole, the
Budget is a good one, and will most likely meet
with approval from all sides, except perhaps in the
case of some prejudiced few. Seldom, indeed, has
a Chancellor of the Exchequer had to take a retro-
spect of more unpropitious times than had Mr.
HUNT yesterday. As he said at the commencement
of his speech, " We have had two bad harvests, and a
commercial crisis to encounter. Notwith-
standing all this the retrospect of the finan-
cial condition of the country is not unsatisfac-
tory." Besides the unfortunate events above alluded
to, there is the Abyssinian war, which of course
greatly increases the difficulty of the position, and
adds to the embarrassment of the Financial Minister.
The manner in which it is proposed to deal with
this burden will not be popular, but under the
peculiar circumstances of the case we do
not see how the Chancellor of the Exchequer
could have done better, and so doubtless it will
come to be looked upon when people have got over
their first vexation at finding the income tax in-
creased. Mr. Hum' informed the House that he
intended to resort to an additional income tax of
twopence in the pound. As he said, very truly, it
would be most inconvenient to raise the requisite
sum by putting on an indirect tax for some time,
and then taking it off again, ant as it is confidently
expected that the Expedition will be over by the
end of May, it would not be advisable to put a tax
on articles of consumption in order to get the sum
required. The excess of expenditure over income
for the year 1867-8 is one million six hundred and
thirty-six thousand. The original estimate fur-
nished by Mr. DISRAELI at two hundred thousand
for putting the army on the coast of Africa will not
be exceeded, but the expenses of the Abyssinian
Expedition from the beginning of this year must
be reckoned as at the rate of six hundred thousand
pounds per month, which is thus made up—Sea.
transport, four hundred thousand ; provision for
troops, twenty-eight thousand ; provisions for
baggage animals, ninety thousand ; extra
advance to troops, ten thousand ; coals,
twenty-six thousand
; and miscellaneous, thirty-
five thousand. Taking for granted that the
Expedition will be over by the end of May, its total
cost will be five millions, of which three millions will
have to be provided.
The arrangements which Mr. Hum' has made
respecting the collectingof the Income Tax are very
excellent, and will conduce to making people get
over the awkward necessity as BOOR as possible, It
avoids the very objectionable plan resorted to by
Mr. GLADSTONE of raising the additional tax in the
first half year, and let things take their ordinary
course, and to meet the emergency he proposes to
take power to issue Exchequer Bonds for a year, to
be replaced when the second half year of
the tax comes in. This is far preferable to the
course pursued by Mr. GLADSTONE, but that
right hon. gentleman, it must be confessed„gene-
rally put his own scientific schemes first and the con-
venience of the public last in his calculations. Mr.
HUNT showed that, putting out of sight the Abys-
sinian Expedition, the estimated surplus on the
ordinary reserve and expenditure of next year's
income would be £922,000 ; and taking this into
account, with the sum raised for the increased
Income Tax, it would leave £3,722,000 to meet the
expense of the war in Abyssinia; hence it is con-
sidered that when the war expenses have been met
there will remain for next year a surplus of £720,000
over and above the extraordinary expenditure of
the year. During the past year there has been a
great increase of revenue from the dog license, and
this is attributable to the improvement in the mode
of levying the tax, an example which might with
advantage be followed ib respect to other assessed
taxes.

Mr. GLAD STONE expressed his general assent to
to the scheme, but made a most extraordinary de-
claration even for one so accustomed to deal in
remarkable statements as himself ; he actually in-
formed the House that an additional twopence in the
Income Tax had not been causel by the expedition
to Abyssinia, but by the faulty management of
the present Government in adding to the ge-
neral expenditure since they came into office.
Making all possible allowance for prejudice, it is
really most perverse of Mr. GLADSTONE to talk after
this fashion, and Mr. IluNT's spirited reply to his
insinuations was exceedingly well timed, and met
with general approval. Referring to the self-com-
placency with which the leader of the Opposition
had referred to occurrences that took place when
he was in office, Mr. HuNT very happily remarked
that he did not know if Mr. GLADSTONE supposed
that all the good fortune had come from the pre-