The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-04-07
LONDON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
General Anxiety Manifested Con-
corning the Coming budget.

t-J4>l"y-Nr Apfh b.--Ela Sfer is the Eng
lishman's first spring holiday. This yea
it finds spring here only lin name Colo
winds and rain and a black and fiowerles.
countryside are the holiday makers por
ton today. Happy are tiit comparatively
few who stayed in businessless London
| The churches alone attract for with the
persistence of war and the Queens death
and the general absence of gayety since
religious services have this year secured
phenomenal attendances.
In home politics. since Lord Salisbury s
Illness proves a slight affair. all thoughts
| are centred on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach' 5
coming budget. Before Parliament rose
on tuesday he was pressed again and
| again to disclose some little corner of his
| secret Especially anxious We're the little
group of protectionists to get him pledged
| beforehand to some form of taxation of
wheat or sugar. with exemption for colon
| ial products to give the necessary flavor
! of imperialism, but not a word either way
could be extracted The financial posi-
| ton looks somewhat less gloomy since
| the publication of the revenue returns for
the financial year just closed. The actual
revenue exceeded the estimates by $14,345,-
600. The war probably will cost at least
$75O.oO9,000. of which $500, 100000 has to be
provided in the coming year. New taxa
| ton already imposed is expected to yield
$60,O00.0ce, leaving another $50. 200 to be
got from further taxation and $l75, 900 900
to be borrowed. bringing the total bor-
rowinSs up to $500,000000.
| Sir Michael Hicks-Bea is not the kind
of Chancellor of the Exchequer to regard
| this financial position as justification for
breaking up the present fiscal system. He
&c thar
tors view today that It is mot nearly
such bad finance to borrow for exceptional
expenditure as to refuse to borrow and
adopt forms of taxation which might inn
peril the commercial prosperity of the ma
| ton" Many Liberals hope that the Gov
eminent may be lured into protectionist
proposals, for nothing would more surely
bring them discontinue; but, whatever
happens, the Liberal leaders have an
nounced beforehand that they mean to
leave the Government to clear up their
own mess.
Herbert Gladstone. the chief Liberal
whip. declares that the Liberals will re-
fuse to relieve the Ministry of their bur-
dens without exacting conditions which
will remove the House of Lords as an OBJ
stacle to Irish, temperance, and other re-
form legislation. This is interpreted as
meaning that the Liberals would refuse to
accept office unless the King first pledged
himself to create number of peers suf
ficient to swamp any opposition in the
House of Lords to home rule and other
Liberal measures.
Last years abundant revenue figures
exercise peculiar comforting influence
just now, and there are abundant signs
that English business men do not take
the depressing views of England's COM
merciai position which certain leading
journals promulgateg Ecen the alarmist
protectionist "DailysMail in an article
today, argues that Americans must fall
back on free trade as the only means of
destroying the power of the steel and
other trusts. Meanwhile the British man
ufacturer is bestirring himself Parties
of workingmen. picked by the trades
unions from various Branches of the
cheering and manufacturing trades. are
being arranged, to- vtsrt r'hhad. 4pula,
Pitt5burg, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati,
and other iron and steel centres of Amer
lea. On the Continent efforts to meet
American competition threaten to take
another shape. u
The forthcoming meeting on the Lake
of Garda of Count Buelow, the Chancellor
of Germany: Signor Zanardelli. the Pre-
mier of Italy. and NJ. WaIdeck- Rousseau.
the Premier of France, is supposed to be
concerned not alone with the renewal of
the Triple Alliance. which approaches its
fixed term, but with the commercial trea-
ties, soon to expire Austria is credited
with an intention to propose a Continent
al tariff alliance to- keep. out American
goods. They might as we'll" as one
English critic puts it, propose to keep
out American weather..
A remarkable decrease In vagrancy has
been taking place in England during the
past four years-so remarkable that If the
decrease continues for the next four years
the warehouses; in the eastern counties
will shut up their casual wards, for there
will be no tramps left In Norfolk the
total of 29037 casuals in 1897 dlropped in
to N IN anh Ia
was only 9,739. The decrease spread over
every union in the county. In Suffolk the
figures for four years are q, s93, % 1885,
Il, 655. and Z. $685.
London is nightly pleased with her new
electric trains in the western sui rrbs
Thursdays passengers numbered 100 900
yesterdays 150.e09. This is probably the
beginning of the end of London's horse
trans.