On the whole, the Budget is moderate, ingenious, and worthy
of the fiscal traditions of the Liberal party, and Sir William Harcourt deserves all the praise he has got for the lucidity of his exposition. It was, however, a marked defect of tact and taste for Sir William Harcourt to lecture Mr. Goschen by implication on the enormity of his conduct in touching the Sinking Fund, and then proceed himself to do the same,—protected merely by the futile distinction that one fund can be labelled the old, and the other the new, Sinking Fund. Again, it was a doubtful step, perhaps, to impose an extra burden on land at a moment when it is virtually unsaleable and utterly crushed by the rates. Nothing could be said against equalisation if Sir William had at the same time made personalty share the rates with the land ; but till this is done, the landowners are very unfairly treated. To say that they get redress in the Income-tax is no answer, for the taxing on net instead of on gross profits was the merest act of justice. Against the extra Spirit and Beer tax we have nothing to say, though if the distillers and brewers turn k-ilky, form a ring, and insist on raising the prices, the Tier will, we suspect, find a good deal to say against it. This 113, adeed, the sore place of the Budget, and will cause special trotge in Ireland, where the liquor interest is said to dom,.late the Parnellites, and largely controls the rest of the Natmalist party.
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