Arizona republican., 1899-04-01
A PEACEFUL EASTER
S0lisbury's Holiday Is Hp-
 proved by England.
The Tax Problem PuZZling inc PeO- pie Just Now-Two Propositions for Raising Additional Revenue, One Labelled Protection.

London. March 31.-England ap-
 breaches Easter amid more peaceful surroundings than she has known be- fore in five years. A year ago, when
 Lord Salisbury went to seek health on
 the shores of the Mediterranean, the
 foreign situation so excited the Chron- icle that it described him as a coward skulking on the Riviera" He has gone to the Rivera again amid a chorus of ''welI-earned holiday"
 This week has seen the publication of an Anglo-F'rench final agreement in Central Africa and an Anglo-Russian provisional agreement in China. It is useless to discuss either at this time. As a Times writer describes the Afri- can settlement: Material for care full estimate of the probable economic value Of the states is largely wanting. The agreement itself bears testimony to our meagre knowledge Of the geo. graphy of the central Soudan, for it cnly effects a rough division, leaving to the mixed commission the task of tracing the working frontier" Even less data are available for judging the China arrangement. Englishmen are entirely skeptical of Russia's goooi faith, but Lord Salisbury's prestige is so restored that they are willing to be- lieve his policy is the most expedient at the present time.
 The fact is that the people can only grapplc one thing at time. and they are now three weeks nearer facing the problem of protection than when the governments fiscal trouble was first discussed. Since then the sit uation has become worse. During the last fortnight of the financial year, which ends today, the treasury officials have been making frantic efforts to collect all the taxes, and the tobacco importers are helping to increase the revenue by heavy and hurried i'm ports, fearing that the remitted tax of sixnence a pound will be reimposed next month. Nevertheless, there will and, with the increased defeaee ex- penditure, Chancellor Hicks Beach will have to raise Z 5000, 900 by fresh taxation.
 There are two diametrically opposite programmes for raising this money. The old-fashioned, orthodox one, which it is expected Chancellor Hicks Beach will adopt, is the restoration Of the sixpence a pound tax on tobacco, the extension of the income tax to bank deposits, legislation to prevent lesators from aiding their heirs to avoid death duties by the device Of making over property to them during life, and the graduated receipt stamp tax. It must be said that most of these are unpopular among the busi- ness community which is the back bone of the unionist party, and it is possible that Chancellor Hicks Beach will not adopt some of them, but in stead, will put a shilling barrel duty on beer.
 The other scheme which will be vigor- usly supported, is to impose a farth- ing a pound tax on all foreign imports of sugar and to reimpose the registra- tion fec on all grains and meal i'm DOI ISt II Oli1 1UI SlSu CCuHI- lCS OI LII S6- pence per hundred weight on grain and fourpence halfpenny on meal and flour. The advocates of this plan re fuse to call it protection, but the free traders insist on the name, and it is sure to stick. Probably the proposal will be submitted as an amendment to Chancellor Hicks Beach s finance bill When a division of he house of com mons is called it will show how mum nance school, which is largely made up of the young imperialists. They are encouraged by the Indian govern ment's decision to impose Q counter vailing duty on tounty-fed sugar.