Some time ago, it was very confidently announced, that the
Re- venue in the present quarter would exhibit a still greater falling off than it did in the last. On Thursday, the Standard, writing at three o'clock in the afternoon, announced that sante hopes were entertained of keeping the deficiency under half a million, but that no surprise need be felt if it should exceed that sum. The Cus- toms, our contemporary went on to inform us, had fallen off greatly, the Excise had also fallen off, "as had every branch of public revenue which is affected by the extorted diminution of the comforts of the people." Yesterday, the tables were published ; and instead of half a million of decrease, there appeared an in- crease of a quarter of a million. There is indeed a falling off in the Customs, of which the quarantine regulations, more especially those of the Southern States of Europe, offer an obvious explana- tion; but in all the other branches of the revenue, whether "affected by the extorted diminution of the comforts of the peo- ple" or not, there is an increase. Yesterday, on this somewhat whimsical accomplishment of his prophecies, our contemporary in- sinuated that the increase was attributable to the opposition to the Bill, of which the quarter had exhibited such notable speci- mens. On the character of that opposition, we have no desire to dwell; whatever may have been its energy, we hardly think the Bill has been in a more doubtful state this quarter than it was in the corresponding quarter last year; but what we would espe- cially like to know is—supposing the Standard to have been right, and the 750,000/. to have gone the other way, what would have been the cause of the falling off? The vigour of the oppo- sition also? Perhaps our speculations may be as baseless as those of our worthy contemporary, but if we were to assign a political cause for the increase, it would be the increased hopes of the peo- ple that the Reform Bill was at length about to pass, and that all the energy of the opposition was about to end, like the Standard's prophecies, in confusion and disappointment.
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