But a great draft on this balance will at once
be made by the new provisions for local taxation. A third of the Probate- duty is to be devoted to the local taxation in the first year (subsequently it will be one-half), and this diminishes the surplus by £1,420,000, which at once reduces it to £957,000. Against this, however, there is to be set off the present grant to main roads, which amounts to £295,000, and which will no longer be made; and that brings the surplus up to £1,252,000. This surplus Mr. Goschen proposes further to diminish by a small remission of the Carriage-tax, intended to relieve the carriage trade, and by the remission of hawkers' licences, and by a reduction on Schedule A of the Income-tax, amounting in all to £75,000, which reduces it to £1,177,000.
But, on the other hand, he proposes to increase it by an increase of !, per cent. on the Succession-duty,---so equalising it with the portion of the Probate-duty kept for Imperial purposes,—which will give him £50,000; by various alterations of the Stamp-duties, by which he hopes to gain in all £410,000, and by a duty on bottled wines of 5s. per dozen, which he expects to yield £125,000,—or, in all, £585,000. This will give a surplus of £1,762,000, and enable him to reduce the Income- tax from 7d. to 6d., by which in the first year he will lose £1,550,000, and thus leave himself, if the Committee accept his Budget, an ultimate surplus of £212,000.
