ENGLISH & FOREIGN.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2219, 6 April 1881, Page 2

ENGLISH & FOREIGN.

[reutee’s telegrams.] LONDON, April 4. Home Quotations. Consols have advanced to 100|-. New Zealand securities are firm at last quotations. The markets for Adelaide and New Zealand breadstuffs, and for Australian tallow, are without quotable change. England and FranceIntelligence has been received that conflicts have occurred on the Tunisan frontier over the disputed right of an English subject, Mr Joseph Levy, to an estate at Enfidd. The matter has already caused diplomatic difficulty between the English and French Governments, and it is feared that fresh complications may arise. Telegrams to-day from France announce that active military preparations are being made by the Government of that country, and the French Press discuss the difficulty in excited terms. LONDON, April 4. Budget Statement at Westminster.

In the House of Commons this evening the Hight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, as Chancellor e£ the Exchequer, made his budget statement in Committee of Ways and Means. He showed that the revenue for the past financial year amounted to £84,062,500, and the expenditure to £83,125,000. He estimates the revenue for the financial year just entered upon at £86,000,000, and the expenditure at £84,687,500. He announced that the financial proposals of Government included a reduction of duty on foreign beers ; the conversion of the national debt, resulting in the reduction of the same by £6,000,000 in twenty-five years: the gradual abolition of plate duty; the adjustment of surtax on foreign spirits, and the adjustment of legacy and probate duties. The result of these changes would bo to still leave a surplus of £300,000, but the reduction of one penny in the income tax from sixpence to fivepence in the pound would be proposed, and the surplus would thus be converted into a deficit of £275,000.