The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-08 00:00:00

THE REVENUE

The revenue accounts for the quarter ending on 'Wednes-
day nieht are more satisfactory than might have been antici-
pated from the prevalence of distress in the manufacturing
districts ; they certainly do not bear out the statements re-
garding commercial and trading depression and difficulties
which the whig radical press has so bountifully and liberally
invented and presented to the public.
For the year ending July 4, 1842, there is an increase of
no less than £665,175 ; and though there is a decrease of
£26,427 on the quarter terminating yesterday, it may be
reasonably inferred that there would have been a very con-
siderable increase had it not been for the intolerable pro-
crastination which has—thanks to whig-radical obstruction—
occurred in the passing of the new tariff. The decrease of
£426,395 in the customs duties for the last quarter, as com-
pared with the quarter ending sth July, 1841, is the price
which the revenue has paid for that delay. Until the settle-
ment of the proposed alteration of import duties, commerce
was almost wholly suspended, and trade was reduced to the
mere demand and supply of passing necessities. The effect
of this commercial paralysis is to be seen in the decrease of
custom duties ; the fact of an universal increase in the other
imposts of the country testifies that there must have been
some particular agency depressing that branch of the revenue;
and the increase in the quarter's excise is an almost unerring
test that in spite of widely-spread distress, there is great
buoyancy of demand in the masses for articles of primary
necessity. The excise, and not the customs, it will be re-
collected, has always been the favourite criterion of the whig
economists, of the condition of the condition of the people.
That the cause we have assigned for the decrease in the
customs is the correct one, is amply confirmed by the state
of the sugar duties, which were excluded from the new tariff.
There has been during the last year a slight augmentation of
those duties, and in the last quarter the revenue derived
from sugar is £1,301,583 as against £1,181,652 for the
quarter terminating sth July, 1841.
The decrease in particular items, during the last quarter,
is £467,383,
while the increase on others is £440,956. Had,
then, the operation of the tariff discussions not intervened
to produce that decrease, it may be safely estimated that the
increase on the quarter would have been nearly £500,000.
On the customs receipts for the next quarter the public
must be prepared for a considerable reduction, owing to the
lowering of the import duties by the new tariff. The
revenue will suffer somewhat heavily by the alteration in
the timber and coffee duties, but consumption will be
greatly increased thereby. Thus, though the treasury may
feel the loss under this head, the public will receive the
benefit. The introduction into the accounts of the new
source of revenue—in the income tax, will, however, greatly
swell out the gross total of the forthcoming quarter.
The amount of revenue for the year ending yesterday is
£45,337,400, against £44,672,225 for the year expiring the
same day last year. The improvement, small though it be,
in the income derived from the excise, stamps, taxes, post-
office, and miscellaneous imposts, is satisfactory—the more
so, as it occurs during a period when, were distress univer-
sal, those sources of income would have been depressed in
production.

There is nothing in the revenue accounts for the quarter
to beget fear or despondency—on the contrary there is a
little to encourage hope. Were all our national prospects as
bright as those of the treasury, there would indeed be little
to apprehend.