THE BUDGET.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 14, 2 July 1864, Page 3

THE BUDGET.

(From the Economist.) The Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not. give .unmixed satisfaction. Nothing human ever does^ But it will, perhaps, go as near to it as the computations of affairs and the imperfections of humanity will admit. Persons who hold a different opinion on the sugar duties may object and be disappointed: the enemies of the Malt-duty may be vexed : one of two other small and outlying minorites may be discontented ; but taking the country as a whole, sensible - men of business, who are the ultimate authority in this mattery will certainly approve of the principal propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and will wonder and admire the singular ingenuity with which they are pieced together. A Budget is half an artistic work to Mr Gladstone. His figures have a kind of ingenious beauty— sometimes, perhaps, a little misleading, but often, as now, embodying and ensuring good results with a delicate and singular precision. Mr Gladstone overlays his Budget speeches with so much information, that persons who have but a slight faculty of reading can scarcely make out from them what the real position of the current financial year is. Mr Gladstone states it perfectly, but he states so much else that some men of business, who have little time and little quickness in catching miscellaneous facts, hardly comprehend as they should how the matter stands. Tet every Budget must be a simple matter when it is reduced to its real essence. The expenditure of the country is for the current year — the year ISO-i-5 — as follows : — Debt £20,400,000 Consolidated Fund ... 1,930,000 Array 14,81-1,000 Navy 10,432,000 Postal 883,000 Miscellaneous 7,029,000 Collection of revenue ... 4,092.000 £06,810,000 Reserve for alterations in iniseollaneous and other estimates £80,000 £66,890,000 And tlie income is as follows : — ou.>Loms £23.ir)0,000 Excise 18,030,000 Stamps 9,320,000 Taxes 3. 250,000 Income-tax 5.0u0.000 Fost-oflico 3,950,000 Crown Lands 31.0,000 Indemnities (5; >0,000 Miscellaneous 2,250.000 £69,-100,000 This estimate of income is framed, after allowing for the diminution on thu incometax, about £850,000, which was the result of the Budget of last year. The new assessment of the Income-tax has shown so large an augmentation in the means of the country, that the best authorities feel quite justified in venturing on the present computation. The year's accounts therefore stand thus : — Incomo £69,100,000 Expenditure 66,890,000 ■Surplus £2,570,000 the whole of which is applicable to the deduction of taxation. There are four principal claimants for this moucy — the reducers of the sugar duties ; next, those of the Income-tax ; next, those of the Eire Insu rance- tax ; and next, those of the Malt-duty. These four classes converge to the focus of the Exchequer, and it is for the Chancellor to say which he ought to favor and which he ought to refuse.