The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-29 00:00:00

PORTUGAL-THE BUDGET.

LISBON, JAN. 22.—0 n the 19th instant Count Tojal
laid before the Chamber of Deputies his anxiously-ex-
pected budget for the year beginning on. the Ist of July
next, and endint on the -10th of June, 1846, from which
it appears that a surplus of about 39 contos is calculated
upon. The following is an abstract of this important
document :

REVENUE.
BOARD OF PUBLIC CREDIT.

Milreis,

For the payment of the interest on the home
debt
For the payment of the foreign debt

2,868,941

• PUTILIC TREASURY.
Direct imports.
Indirect ditto
Crown lands and mit-cellaneous 417,832

7,888,013

Total revenue

10,756,954

EXPENDITURE.
BOARD OF PUBLIC CREDIT.

Miis.
Interest on home debt
Interest on foreign ditto

2,868,457

General charges (including Civil
List) 2,065,207
Home Department
Finance ditto
Justice ditto 423,216
War ditto....
Marine ditto 868,194
Foreign Affairs ditto

Surplus

7,849,085

10,717,542
39,412

10,756,954
The presentation of this budget was preceded by a
very long programme, which the Finance Minister read
aloud to the Chamber, and the most important and inte-
resting portions of which we have selected for translation,
as follows, via.:--

(TRANSLATIOD7.)
"Sirs,—l have the satisfaction to lay before you the
budget of the receipts and expenditure of the State for
the financial year 1845-6.
" For my ability to do so I am indebted to the confi-
dence with which her Majesty the Queen has honoured
me; and assuredly never was it my duty to perform a
more pleasing and grateful task.
" The efforts by which the present Administration
has for three years preserved public order, maintained
the institutions of the country, and provided for the
exigencies of the State, are fully acknowledged and ap-
preciated. _ _ _

" The triumph of the cause of royalty and legal liberty
—the organising and reforming measures adopted in all
branches of the public service—and the punctual
fulfilment of all legally contracted engagements, have
been the bases upon which we flatter ourselves to have
established that public confidence without which there
can be neither political stability nor financial organi-
sation.

" Various measures promulgated in the course of last
year by the present Administration, are now becon'e
laws of the land. Amongst them there is one which is
eminently tendent towards the organisation of our
finances. I allude to the farming of the united tobacco,
soap, and gunpowder comps►nies, in connection with the
raising of a loan of 4,000 contos, at five per cent. and
at par.

A series of political events had long rendered the
solution of our financial problem extremely complicated
and difficult. Imperative circumstances arising out of
those events had caused a necessity for sacrifices which
the scanty resources of the treasury could ill support;
and to crown all other difficulties, the future revenues
were mortgaged to the extent of two-thirds of their
amount—a state of things which could not but inspire
the Government with the most serious apprehensions of
a crisis, the fatal consequences of which could easily be
foreseen.

" It was in this alarming situation that the Govern-
ment conceived a thought pregnant with advantageous
results to the country, and calculated to put an end, a
great measure, to the torrent of embarrassments which
involved it on every side.
" The Decree of the 30th June last contained that
most important measure, to which we owe—
" Ist. The loan of 4,000 contos at par, and at the
moderate interest of five per cent., to be redeemed in
23 years.
" 2d. The augmentation, by 72,427 milreis, of the
price for which the tobacco, &c., monopolies have been
farmed.

" 3d. The redemption of the mortgages upon various
branches of the revenue.

"4th. The rapid rise in the value of the public funds.
"sth. The development of the spirit of association,
inspired by confidence in the acts of Government, mod
the tendency of capital towards useful undertakings,
which must promote the material amelioration and pros-
perity of the country.
"The Government purposes laying before this Cham-
ber at an early period a statement of the application of
the last loan of 4,000 contos, and to propose such mea-
sures as it may deem indispensable, in order that the
ordinary and extraordinary expenses of the year, ending
30th June, 1845, as well as any extraordinary demands
that may arise in the following year, may be provided
for without encroachment upon the revenue appropriated
to each of those years.

" I shall now proceed to state to you the estimated
revenue and expenditure for the year 1845-6.
(Here follow long details, the substance of which is
given in the above abstract.)
"The interest on the foreign debt is calculated at the
rate of one-half per coat. additional, in conformity to
the decree of the 2d of November, 1840. There would
therefore be, under that head, a deficit of 248,292
milreis; but by means of the accompanying project, No.
1, which I have the honour to lay before you that de-
ficit can be covered. It is proposed therein, that in ex-
change for the additional duties upon foreign imports,
which have hitherto formed part of the endowment of
the Board of Public Credit, shall be substituted an
annual allowance of 900,000 milreis, 480,000 of which
to be paid from the Custom-house of Lisbon and 420,000
from that of Oporto.
" You will see by a comparison of the present estimates
with those for the years 1844-5, that reductions to the
following amounts have been made in the expenditure of
the several departments, viz.:—
Home
Finance 122,029
Justice
War
Marine
Foreign Affairs

J N: TT Ail, IT 29 1845.

ful fecoi-ety ot all those rights of which, on account of
their attachment to the chair of Peter, they have been
deprived—nor shall they suffer any power of Parliamen-
tary creation to intercept one particle of that homage we
all owe his Holiness, or of that spiritual jurisdiction, of
which he is the best guardian. And allow me to ask
yoti, who are they who in reality are making inroads on
the power of the Pope, and striving to make a mockery
of his jurisdiction ? Is it we who constitutionally
labour for the repeal of the Bequests Act, which
is repugnant to the canons of the Church, and not in
accordance with the principles of the Catholic religion
or those who, without consulting the Holy See, strive
tyrannicaliy to enforce so penal an enactment ? Before
the Commission was named we sought, as was the duty
of Catholics, that this question should be referred to the
decision of the Holy Father ? We were told why refer
to the Holy Father a question regarding mere tempora-
lities ? Such was the unceremonious way in which the
authority of Rome was treated, The people meet—re-
solVe, denounce the unconstitutional encroachment on
their civil rights i they are told that they violate the
obedience due to their spiritual superiors by their deli-
berating and resolving on a matter which they should
leave to a spiritual tribunal. Thus the Pope must not
decide because it is a temporal matter ; the people must
not decide because it is a spiritual concern, and during
this unprincipled and sophistical shifting, the prophecy
of a celebrated writer is sought to be realised by the
erection of a ministerial and political papacy in our own
kingdom, directed by the nod of the Premier, disregard-
ing on one hand the authority of the Pope, and on the
other striving to crush the religious and political rights
of the people.
" Whoever reflects on the career of Mr. Anthony
Blake, his evidence before a Committee of the House of
Commons, and his being a member of this Commission,
must, unless the Commission be speedilydissolved, enter-
tain serious fears for the continuance of the Pope's sub-
stantial authority in Ireland. When I consider that he
has been the old advocate of the veto, and of every mea-
sure for fettering the freedom of the Catholic Church, the
pliant and dexterous follower of every successive Admi-
nistration, whether Whig or Tory, the self-appointed
patron of Maynooth College, in order to project, I sup-
pose with Mr. Thomas Wys.., how far it may be feasible,
by a little domestic concordat, to effect some change in
the system of the teaching of its faith, for an increase in
its finances. In short, the concoctor of a scheme of a royal
Commission of bishops to manage the payment of the Ca-
tholic clergy, and to inflict the penalties of misdemeanour
on the others who should not yield to the usurped
powers of political bishops of the Parliamentary Com-
mission. When I consider how on that occasion he
trifled with the authority of the Pope, recommending a
course of penal legislation, and then leaving the Pope to
shift for his own authority the best way he could; when
I reflect that much of what has been suggested has been
already done in establishing the Commission of the Be-
quests Act, lam only consoled by the reflection that
the mischievous projects of the man will be defeated by
the pious zeal of the Catholics of Irelond in procuring a
total repeal of the law, and, were it not for this their zeal,
I fear that as a public and political character history
would have to record, that since the disastrous event of
Protestant ascendancy a worse importation, or one more
fatal to the Catholic religion than the same Mr. Anthony
Blake was never wafted back to Ireland. To Lord
Stanley this gentleman would be a most valuable acqui-
sition in the colonies. How humiliating the prospect
of the once glorious Church of Ireland, when its pastors
allowed their holiest rights and duties to be invaded and
usurped by such scheming political adventurers.
"I cannot, therefore, but deplore the misdirection of

the patriotic feelings of some ardent Irishmen combating
the phantom of a foreign temporal power, while they
are heedless cf the enemy that is threatening them at
home. Instead of being alarmed at the exercise of any
undue power from abroad, what is desirable is to pre-
vent any encroachment on the Pope's hallow ed autho
rity in protecting our Church. Some are also in ecsta-
cies rather immoderate at the diplomatic announcement
that no negotiations are going forward on the affairs of
the Irish church between the Holy See and the British
Government. Even should their not, what grounds are
there for congratulation ? What need you require a
concordat, if, even without one, you can erect your
Commission at home, and delegate to it a Parliamentary
jurisdiction to invade the rights of the Catholic
hierarchy ? What more do you require ? Lord Hey-
teshury hopes, indeed, that the Catholics of Ireland
will, therefore, be contented. Yes, they will be less sus-
picious when the Bequests Act is repealed, and the Be-
quests Board dissolved ; otherwise his Excellency's pro-
position amounts to this Be not alarmed ; we have
only made a breach in the walls of your Church ; hold,
forbear your meetings ; put confidence in us, your old
and trusty friends, and we will pledge ourselves to halt
at the gates and make no further advances on your re-
ligion..

It is also made a subject of similar congratulation,
that should a concordat be negotiated, all then would
assist in averting such evils from the Catholic church.
Instead of wasting our solicitude on distant and con-
tiegent dangers, we should be alive to the imminent evils
of the Commission now established at home, and labour
to close the breach which has been recently made in the
bulwarks of its holy discipline. It will not be enough
to say—' Allow the present incipient usurpation of the
rights of the bishops to be firmly established, and in
future they will obtain every necessary assistance in
repelling future aggresSion.' Such is their mode of deal-
ing with the evil who talk of amendments in the Act,
and the removal or modification of this or that objec-
tionable clause, while they allow the encroaching and
invading principle of the Commission itself—the vigorous
root of the evil -to remain. No, the successful step of
letting any portion of the Act remain would only prompt
you or any otherNlinister to in vite other prelates tojoin him
in a fresh assault on our liberties, by another new Com
mission still more penal ; the example 'ince given by
good and enlightened men, of joining one Commission
in disregard of the known wishes and feelings of, in
general, the people, the clergy, and the majority of their
brethren, might be successively adopted at some future
day by others improving on their models, until the citadel
of Catholicity would thus be surrendered, and almost
tall tile sacred functions of the hierarchy be usurped by
motley aggregations of political and Parliamentary
Commissioners.

_
• " Let, then, your firstpreeommendation to Parliament-
be, the repeal of an Act which the mischief already pro-
-duced should he a warning of:the more awful calamities
with which it is fraught:' A la* so penal to religion,,
-and so utterly repugnant. to. the interests and declared
will of the entire people, would,,according to all spqpd
civilians auk jurists, be .downright' tyranny tO enforce.,
You feared, if We are to judge of the night combinations
of law and :armaments to which You resorted to crush
them, tlle display
,of ,popular • power exhibited by these
monster meetings. t The "malignant spirit of your Be-
quests Act has evoked' a far more formidable agitation.
Yes—the people of Ireland, and its clergy, love their
country. They are solicitous for its prosperity, and will
give every aid compatible with their respective duties
towards the restoration of a native Legislature. But
they love their religion more—the one being a temporal,
and the other an eternal interest. Indeed, so much are
Ireland and the Catholic religion bound up together in
the system of English domination, that it would be diffi-
cult to separate the interests of one flora the other. To
the spoliation of their country's rights, religion has often
reconciled the Irish people. Their history has attested
that they are a nation who, for that holy religion, are
ready to sacrifice their lives.
" I am your faithful servant,
" JOHN, Archbishop of Tuam."