NEWS OF THE WEEK.
IR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACH opened his ki Budget on Thursday evening. His first duty was to point out that the final figures for the Imperial Revenue and expenditure for 1898-99 were as follows:— Revenue, £108,336,000; expenditure, £108,150,000 ; surplus, £186,000. Thus the year closes with a small realised surplus. But the estimates for expenditure for the coming year are £112,927,000. How is this to be met ? An increase in expenditure can obviously only be met in one of three ways : (1) by decreasing the money paid out of the Treasury, (2) by increasing the amounts paid in, or (3) by a little of both. He proposed to adopt the third plan. To begin with, he expected that the Revenue on the existing basis of taxa- tion would increase automatically from £108,336,000 to £110,287,000. This leaves £2,640,000 still to be made up. Next he proposed to save £2,000,000 a year by decreasing the amount now expended in paying off Debt. This decrease in expenditure is, however, not enough, but leaves £640,000 still to be found in order to make the Budget for 1899-1900 just balance. But some margin is absolutely necessary for contingencies. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach asks for £230,000 on this head, and he therefore has £870,000 in all to get by fresh taxation.
