WHAT MR. GLADSTONE HAS DONE FOR ENGLAND.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 56, 6 March 1869, Page 4

WHAT MR. GLADSTONE HAS DONE FOR ENGLAND.

From 1860 to 1866 he has remitted taxes to the amount of £12,256,844 ; and he has imposed taxes amounting to a total of £2,314,791 ; showing on the whole a balance of £9,942,053 of taxes or reduced over taxes of a similar kind increased or imposed. This does not include income-tax, which was. Sir E. Peel's great instrument of financial reform, and has been Mr. Gladstone's too. But after all, he leaves the income-tax lower than he found it. He found tbe income-tax at SJ. in the pound, and after many changes and some improvements of structure ho leaves it at 4d. ; and it marks the growth of our prosperity that this tax, which at sd. in the pound yielded in 1859-60 £6,633,507, yielded in 1805-66 as much as £6,390,000 at 4d. Mr. Gladstone had great difficulties to encounter in his reforms, not only such as every finance minister at all times must encounter in his reforms, not only such as every finance minister at all times must encounter in similar attempts, but one at least of great magnitude peculiar to the lime in which he ,acted. The cost of national defence in England augmented wonderful by during part of his administration. Setting aside the expenditure on fortifications, the expenditure on oar national armament, winch, in 185S-59 £22,509,003, rose in 186061 to £31,344000 being an increase of 9,000,000. It requires not only much financial skill, but what is at least as rare financial courage, to achieve such groat reductions of taxation at a time when our ncccessary expenditure augmented so much and so suddenly. It cannot be said that Mr. Gladstone has affected his reductions by diminish- | ing the_ national income. On the the contrary, he left to his successor an income of £65,914,000, while he rereive I from his predecessors an income of 64,663,000, shewing an augmentation of £1,251,000. Nor has Mr. Gladstone augmented our liabilities. He found a national debt on the 31st of March, 1859, of £823,934,000 ; he left it on the 31st of March, 1866, at £302,842,019; snowing a diminution .of £21.021,931, notwiti.stanlin^ that s>o many ta^os have be?n reJuesd or repealc;!. Independently of what he may do hereafter, or what ho did before?. Mr. Gladstone will descend to posterity by what he did in the administration now ended as og^a.l, if not su-381'ior, to Mr. Pitt aud fcJir R. Poel ih fioir owa c mu'fcs'usiic nl chosen pjliey. iv t\6 ea-osirn^amont of tr.vlo ii\l rovemi3 ny fcio rj.luaVi in of taKOSj <\'i\\ fc'io relief of iniu^t.*".— = Ci Eoon^-