TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BUDGET OF 1860.
ME. GLADSTONE'S financial scheme for the year towards which he glanced seven years ago with so much fervour, notwithstanding the disturbing circumstances of the interval and the non-fulfil- ment of cherished hopes, does not disappoint the expectations raised by his friends and discreetly whispered about in ppoliticalsociety. Even the casual delay of a week, which, by raising ex-
pectation still higher, would have been absolutely fatal to medio- crity, has actually served Mr. Gladstone, for, sanguine as were the anticipations, no one, we venture to say, anticipated the reality. This period of excited suspense, sharpened by the hints of friends, is one of the severest trials which can fall to the lot of a financier. It is the fortune of Mr. Gladstone to have undergone the ordeal, and to have come unscathed out of the fire.
To say that the budget is comprehensive is a small kind of, approval. Broad and bold in its outlines, it is microscopically
minute in its details, and while the Chancellor hauls in millions by a wide cast of the Income-tax, he does not disdain to stoop for the produce of penny duties. While he roots up a large impost
like the paper duty, he also removes a petty. tax upon dates. It is the searching revision of the tariff, the spying out and excision of protective and paltry duties, that constitutes the characteristic of the Budget. Even thecommercial treaty with France is only a section of the bold design, and had there been no treaty nor possi- bility of a treaty, it is clear from the principle on which Mr. Gladstone has acted, that we should have had no commonplace jog-trot budget, no thing of shreds and patches. For Mr. Glad- stone has been animated by a fervid desire to carry on the work which Peel left incomplete. And under what different circumstances ! It was that great statesman's fortune to design budgets calculated to cope with the evils of periods of adversity, and from the nettle danger to pluck the flower safety. It is Mr. Gladstone's fortune to legislate for times of prosperity, periods when the country enjoys a roaring trade, and to show us that if the uses of adversity are sweet, sweet also are the uses of prosperity. As our calamities led us into the fertile and flowery path of free-trade, so the very harvest we have reaped is the stimulus that urges us to penetrate more deeply into fresh fields and new pastures of commerce and industry, and to weave as we work the ties of amity and inter- national brotherhood. We have made great conquests by our peaceful aggression in the markets of the world; let us make
greater— •
" For all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades For ever and for ever as we move."
We have moved far, and still see no end. The prospect is illi- mitable ; but if we would cultivate its alluring fields, and reap a rich harvest, we must do so with limbs unshackled by even the shreds of those vicious restraints empirically invented as make- shifts when the laws of trade, commerce and industry were un- known.
The characteristic of Mr. Gladstone's budget is not a grand simplicity. The design is complex, but it is harmonious. It does not sweep away a host of duties, and rely on one gigantic tax to fill the void. Mr. Gladstone has balanced his remissions and impositions, hoping to stimulate enterprise and create em- ployment by the former, and to exact the latter with as little stress on the sources of employment as possible. Perhaps he would have preferred a less complex arrangement. Throughout his speech he was haunted by the shining seductive vision of a shilling Income-tax. That splendid shilling—what would it not have enabled him to do in the way of remission, and if he could but get it how sweeping. would his remissions have been ! But it is best as it is. The principle of small indirect duties deserved a trial, and the shilling would have been a daring advance towards a system of direct taxation. Mr. Gladstone evidently thinks that he has carried his Income-tax to the utmost limits of the en- durable. Oh, the freaks of fate ! Here is the very man whose design it was to abolish that war taxon incomes in this very year, once more Financial Minister, longing for a shilling Income-tax, and actually imposing one very little short of a shilling.
The circumstances of this year must be understood, in order to appreciate the bold use which Mr. Gladstone has made of them. It is not only that a large sum is subtracted from the interest on
the National Debt by the i falling in of the Long Annuities. There are other peculiarities. There is the French treaty, involving a possible loss of 1,190,0001. There are the war rates upon sugar and tea, and the augmented Income-tax about to lapse. As the account stands, deducting these items, we have a high level expenditure of 70,100,0001., met by receipts not exceeding 60,700,0001. Before us yawns the profound chasm of a deficit of 9,400,0001. How is that to be filled ? One way would be to re- new the war duties on tea and sugar, and impose an Income-tax of 9d. in the pound. Another way would be to abandon the war duties on tea and sugar, and exact that fascinating shilling in- come-tax. Mr. Gladstone takes a broader view, and rearranges a large section of our scheme of taxation. He finds his way out of the difficulties by a revision of the tariff, and by the abolition of one excise impost. By the treaty with France, a " sweep clean, entire, and abso- lute," is made of manufactured goods from the British tariff. The duty on brandy is reduced from 158. to 8s. 2d., and the duty on wine from Ss. 104 to 3s. per gallon; with a further prospective reduction next year. Apart from any treaty, it is a good thing to sweep out those holes and corners wherein little protective duties have taken refuge, and it is far better to clear these away, than to reduce the duties on tea and sugar, which are duties levied for the single purpose of obtaining revenue. Besides these im- provements in the Customs, Mr. Gladstone, determined to go through with his task, proposes others. He abolishes at once the duties on eggs, butter, cheese, tallow, oranges and lemons, nut- megs, liquorice, and dates—articles which yield 382,0001. He demolishes the differential duties on timber, and fixes them at the colonial level of 18. and 2s. He reduces the duties on cur- rants, to 7s. per hundredweight ; on raisins and figs, from 108. to 78. ; on hops, from 45s. to 14s. These remissions and abolitions give relief to the extent of 1,035,0001., but the loss to the revenue is estimated at 910,0001. Then he takes off at once the excise duty on paper. The sum of remissions and abolitions of all kinds including those involved in the stipulations of the French treaty, is about equivalent to the amount of the annuities now falling in, that is 2,146,000/. It must be admitted that these are vast and salutary changes ; they are on the whole calculated to promote trade, and they meet the fair claims of the people. But they help to create a huge deficit which must be met. Mr. Gladstone meets it by various small devices, and two great measures. He proposes a penny tax on packages and goods in bulk, and expects to obtain by that simple device 300,0001. Next, he will impose a charge on certain operations now performed in warehouses, but lying beyond the scope of the warehousing system strictly so-called, as per contra he sketches an extension of bonded warehouses to inland towns. This is to yield 120,0001. A tax on chicory, or other vegetable used with coffee, is to bring in 90,000/. ; a penny stamp on notes of sale of foreign and colonial produce and brokers' contract notes is to.bring in 100,0001. ; and other stamp-duties 20,000/. Then comps a charge for licenses to eating houses, double on those open after midnight; and a re- arrangement of the duty on game certificates. It is these small items, as our readers will learn from a separate paper, and the removal of protective duties, that will call up a lively opposition. After all, the great bulk of the deficit is filled by the retention of the war duties on tea and sugar for fifteen months, and the imposition of an income-tax of 9d. in the pound.
The' net result is a remission of taxation to the amount of 3,931,000/., and a lose to the revenue estimated at 2,108,0001. The tariff will be simplified—practically reduced to some fifteen articles for revenue purposes, all protective and differential duties will virtually have disappeared, and large savings will be made, in consequence, in the management of the Customs and the Ex- cise.
Whatever may be thought of this remarkable budget, it cannot be said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has consulted his con- venience rather than his glory. The guiding principles dis- cernible in the framework of the revised 'scheme, are remissions to stimulate trade and to benefit the whole body of consumers. Not England, not France, not Europe alone will feel the invigorating effects of these arrangements if they are carried out. Their bene- ficial operation will stretch from continent to continent, and almost from pole to pole. But unless all the calculators are deceived, it is between England and France that the greatest amount of new trade will spring up when time has fully ripened the arrangements of the two governments, and all the covenants of the treaty are fulfilled. Protection will be rooted out ; we shall start afresh on the principle of levying taxes solely for revenue ; and fairly kill at last the long-lived delusion that we can tax the foreigner with- out inflicting any injury on ourselves.
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