Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-03-11
The POLICY
OF ENGLAND
May Soon Have to be Radically
Changed.
PROTECTION IS NEEDED
A Growing Deficit Under Free Trade
is ShoWn--LOndOn Times Re-
view of the Situation.
New York, March 1.-THE London cor

| New YORK, March 1.-the London cor
respondent of the Tribune writes:
Unless all signs fail, there will be i'm
portant debates on financial problems
after the chancellor of the eXcheQuer lays
his budget before the commons. One of
these signs is the ominous warning from
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach hat the balance
OF revenue and expenditure may be on
the wrong side and that measures may
be required for meeting a considerable
deficit. Another straw which shows the
direction of the wind is Mr.. Morley's pro-
test against the alarming increase of
national expenditures.
| The most remarkable indication, how
ever, of transition stage on national
finance is the candor of the Times, the
leading journal, recommending the re-
imposition of duties which were abolished
when free trade was established as the
permanent financial policy of the United
! kingdom That great organ of English
opinion has been publishing a series of
important articles by an expert on the
finances of the last two years and it vir-
tually adopts his conclusion that the time
has come for reconsderng and revising
and comprehensive way. The method
recommended involves a return to prin-
ciples which Golden and Bright con-
demned.
The points of the argument are as fol-
lows: The national expenditures have in
creased about SO per cent during 20 years
and the bulk of the additional burden has
been thrown upon direct taxation where
as indirect taxation has remained almost
unchanged, customs and excise being
taken together. The death duties have
been nearly trebled and the income tax
has grown proportionately and all the ex-
tTaordnary burdens of the state and a
steadily increasing share of the ordinary
burdens have been thrown by direct taxa
ton upon limited class. These increased
direct charges now operate as a high tax
upon capital and are detrimental to the
interests of the working classes. They
also involve exhaustion of what was once
a great financial reserve. 1t was once
easy to meet fresh emergency by put
| ting an extra penny on the tax but it is
no longer practicable to do this since the
extraordinary resource has been convert
ed into the ordinary source of revenue
under conditions of profound peace. The
+! income tax has not been below six pence
in Is years and year after year it has
stood al eight pence. The center of graV-
ity Of taxation has been altered by a tre-
mendous increase of direct charges with
out any corresponding addition to indi-
rect charges.
/ The conclusions from these promises a,e
courageously drawn by the Times. 1t will
be the act of weak government if the
probable deficit of the treasury be met by
adding another penny to the income tax
or by the feeble expedient of a suspension
of the sinking fund. 1t is dangerous to
depend continuously upon direct taxation
for carrying extraordinary burdens and it
! is hardly less perilous to restrict the list
of chargeable commodities for indirect
! taxation by reimposing the shilling duty
on wheat and that of penny duty on
sugar and also to renounce the idea that
! a free breakfast table is a sacred Brit
/ ish privilege.
! The Times doubts if the present chan
cellor of the exchequer is likely to pro-
! pose these radical changes, yet it is con-
| vinced that if some measures of the kind
! are not adopted England will find itself
i confronted with far more serious finan-
! cial problems in the immediate future.
| 1t is needless to add that the chancellor
| of the exchequer who ventures to propose
duties on wheat and sugar will be charged
| with treason to free trade. Duties on
wheat and sugar will be the entering
wedge for the policy of indirect taxation
which free traders have been describing
| for half a century as runous to protec-
Zionist America. The chancellor of the
eychequer is not likely to expose himself
| TO destructive criticism from the liberal
| benches by proposing so radical change
| in the financial system as the abandon
ment Of English free trade. There will
! be a budget speech with temporary ex-
! Incidents and small makeshifts and the
chancellor of the eXchcquer will wriggle
| ont of his deficit by suspending the new
sinking fund and re-imposing the tobacco
duty which was reduced last year.
Nevertheless, it is a fact of deep sig
nificance that powerful journal like the
Times, which not only understands, but
also directs the forces of English opinion,
should be advising a return to corn laws
and sugar duties. 1t is an unanswerable
nroof that free trade has ceased to be re-
corded with superstitious awe as an econ
omic fetch. The unceasing strain Of in