The times., 1901-04-07
LONDON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
General Anxiety Manifested Com
cerniu% the Coming Budget.


LONDON. April 6.--Easfer is the Eng
lisnmon's first spring holiday. This year
it finds spring here only lin name. Cold
winds and rain and a black and flowerless
countryside are the holiday-makers' por-
ton today. Happy are thu comparatively
few who stayed In businessless London
The churches alone attract for with the
persistence of war and the Queens death
and the CEREAL absence of gayety since,
religious services have this year secured
phenomenal attendances.
In home politics, since Lord Salisbury s
Illness proves slight affair, all thoughts
are centred on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach $
coming budget Before Parliament rose
on Tuesday he was pressed again and
again to disclose some little corner of his
secret. Especially anxious were 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-
tion looks somewhat less gloomy since
the publication of the revenue returns for
the financial year just closed. The actual
revenue exceeded the estimates by $l4,343,-
600. The war probably viii cost at least
500, 100000, OF which $500 100000 has to be
provided in the coming year. New taxa
ton already imposed is expected to yield
ST., o,000, 00e leaving another $50 G00.000 to be
got from further taxation and $4,000 900
to be borrowed. bringing the total bor-
rowings up to $500. 900, 900.
Sir Michael Hicks Beach is not the kind
of Chancellor of the Exchequer to regard
this financial position as Justification for
breaking up the present fiscal system. He
is more than likely to adopt the "Specta-
tor's' 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 i'm
peril the commercial prosperity of the ma
ton" Many Liberals hope that the Gov
ernment 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-
10TH ltBlSidllD1. 1ilIS Is iultI pItttu %
meaning that the Liberals would refuse to
accept office unless the King first pledged
himself to create a 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 q peculiar comforting influence
just now, and there are abundant signs
that English business men do not take
the depressing views of Englands S COM
mercial position which certain leading
journals promulgateg Even the alarmist
protectioniSt Daily .Mafif 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 en-
gineering and manufacturing trades, are
being arranged, to- VisII rhItdu, .pfi!a. .
Pittsburg 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.
The forthcoming meeting on the Lake
of Garda of Count Buelow. the Chancellor
of Germany; Signor -Zanardelli the Pre-
mier of Italy. and NJ Maldeck-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 Continent
al tarih 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 ii 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 29,037 casuals in 1897 dropped in
1898 to "a 12S in 1899 to 10 095, and last year
was only 9139. The decrease spread over
every union in the county. In Suffolk the
figures for four years are 23StS, q, ,3Sj
Il. .G55. and ISIS.
London is nightly pleased with her new
electric trains in the western Sui Crbs
Thursdays passengers numbered 10000
yesterdays 15G.C09 This is probably the
beginning of the end of Londons horse
trans.